Interaction of exercise and adenosine receptor agonist and antagonist on rat heart antioxidant defense system.

This study investigated the interactive effects of acute exercise and adenosine receptor agonist and antagonist on antioxidant enzyme activities, glutathione and lipid peroxidation in the heart of the rat. Male Fisher-344 rats were divided into six groups and treated as follows: (1) saline control; (2) acute exercise (100% VO2max); (3) R-Phenyl isopropyl adenosine (R-PIA) (3.46 micromol/kg, i.p.); (4) theophylline (1.70 micromol/kg, i.p.) plus acute exercise; (5) theophylline plus R-PIA; and (6) theophylline. Animals were sacrificed 1 h after treatments; hearts were isolated and analyzed. The results show that acute exercise as well as adenosine receptor agonist R-PIA significantly enhanced cardiac superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and glutathione reductase (GR) activity by 36-135% and 16-51%, respectively. Adenosine receptor agonist R-PIA significantly decreased cardiac GSSG concentration and enhanced GSH/GSSG ratio by 22 and 30%, respectively. Whereas theophylline treatment blocked the activation of antioxidant enzyme activities enhanced by acute exercise and R-PIA. Theophylline treatment significantly increased lipid peroxidation by 43% in the heart of exercised rats. The study concluded that the adenosine receptors are involved in the upregulation of cardiac antioxidant defense system and attenuation of lipid peroxidation due to acute exercise in rats.