Local skeletal muscle heating and cooling impacts PGC-1β, but not PGC-1α expression after resistance exercise

PGC-1α expression is increased after endurance exercise. Following exercise and recovery in a cold environment PGC-1α will increase further but is inhibited in a hot environment. PGC-1β is thought to play a role in glucose and lipid metabolism and also in thermoregulation. Little is known about the effect of local muscle temperature following resistance exercise on PGC-1α and PGC-1β. PURPOSE: To determine the impact of local muscle heating and cooling on PGC-1α and PGC-1β following resistance exercise. METHODS: Recreationally resistance-trained male participants (n = 12, 25 ± 5 y, 179 ± 6 cm, 86.8 ± 12.5 kg, 13.6 ± 6.6% body fat) completed 4 sets of 8-12 repetitions of unilateral leg press (11 ± 1 repetitions, 76.6% 1-RM) and leg extension (9 ± 1 repetitions, 61.1% 1-RM) while one leg was heated and one leg was cooled using a thermal therapy system (ThermaZone, Cleveland OH). Muscle biopsies were obtained from the vastus lateralis of each leg pre- and 4 h post-exercise for gene expression analysis. RESULTS: PGC-1α increased due to exercise (p = 0.001) in both the hot (4.36 ± 1.94 fold) and cold (4.03 ± 2.76 fold) conditions. Expression of PGC-1β was not significantly different with exercise (p = 0.469), but was higher in the hot trial (1.47 ± 0.79 fold) than the cold trial (-0.35 ± 0.11 fold; p = 0.009). CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate that expression of PGC-1β is impacted by local muscle temperature during exercise and recovery while PGC-1α mRNA is not