Transient regulation of c-fos, alpha B-crystallin, and hsp70 in muscle during recovery from contractile activity.

Endurance exercise training increases the oxidative capacity of skeletal muscles, reflecting the induction of genes encoding enzymes of intermediary metabolism. To test the hypothesis that changes in gene expression may be triggered specifically during recovery from contractile activity, we quantified c-fos, alpha B-crystallin, 70-kDa heat shock protein (hsp70), myoglobin, and citrate synthase RNA in rabbit tibialis anterior muscle during recovery from intermittent (8 h/day), low-frequency (10 Hz) motor nerve stimulation. Recovery from a single 8-h bout of stimulation was characterized by large (> 10-fold) transient increases in c-fos, alpha B-crystallin, and hsp70 mRNA. Similar changes were noted during recovery after 7 or 14 days of stimulation (8 h/day). Myoglobin and citrate synthase mRNA were also induced during recovery, but the changes were of lesser magnitude (2- to 2.5-fold) and were observed only following repeated bouts of muscle activity (7th or 14th day) that promoted sustained (> 24 h) increases in these transcripts. These findings indicate that recovery from exercise is associated with specific transient changes in the expression of immediate early and stress protein genes, suggesting that the products of these genes may have specific roles in the remodeling process evoked by repeated bouts of contractile activity.