Protective effect of four weeks of high-intensity interval training on apoptosis signaling pathway in heart tissue of mice with breast cancer

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Sports Physiology, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran.

2 Department of Exercise Physiology, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran.

10.22077/jpsbs.2025.9803.1988

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and the second leading cause of death in the world. The aim of this study was to investigate the protective effect of four weeks of high-intensity interval training on Bax/Bcl2/Caspase3 expression in the heart tissue of mice with breast cancer.
Materials and Methods: In this study, 30 female BalbC mice with an average age of 8 weeks and an average weight of 18±2 grams were randomly divided into three groups: tumor group, tumor+doxorubicin group, and tumor+doxorubicin+exercise group. The exercise training program consisted of eight weeks of high-intensity interval training with a sequence of five sessions per week. The expression levels of Bax/Bcl2/Caspase3 in heart tissue were evaluated using the real-time method. One-way ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc test were used to examine the differences between groups in each variable. The significance level was considered to be p<0.05.
Results: Doxorubicin significantly increased the expression of apoptotic proteins Bax and Caspase3 (p=0.0005 and p=0.0007, respectively) but significantly decreased the expression of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl2 in the heart tissue of cancer mice (p=0.0002). However, high-intensity interval training significantly decreased the expression of apoptotic proteins Bax and Caspase3 (p=0.010 and p=0.008, respectively) but significantly increased the expression of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl2 in the heart tissue of cancer mice (p=0.002).
Conclusion: According to the findings of the present study, it can be said that high-intensity interval training in breast cancer patients treated with doxorubicin has a very beneficial and preventive role in controlling the intrinsic apoptosis signaling pathway; therefore, performing this type of exercise regularly along with drug treatment is likely to be very effective in this regard.

Keywords

Journal of Practical Studies of Biosciences in Sport

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 24 November 2025

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