Physical training induces expression of TGF-beta in kidney of pregnant hypertensive rats

This study aimed to determine the morphological renal impairment in pregnant rats spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) submitted to swimming when compared with those who did not perform the activity, and to analyze the relationship of expression of cytokines in inflammatory fibrotic and protrained and sedentary animals.

SHRs and their respective control normotensive rats (WKY) were submitted or not to a swimming protocol during 9 weeks, resulting in four pregnant experimental groups: sedentary hypertensive (HS), trained hypertensive (HT), sedentary normotensive (NS), and trained normotensive (NT).

Pregnant untrained hypertensive rats presented higher resting mean blood pressure (MAP) compared with both sedentary and trained normotensive groups (P<0.05). We can observe too, that the exercise training did not change the heart rate (HR) in both hypertensive and normotensive groups (P=0.127). The HT rats showed lower area of mesangial matrix (MM) compared to NT group (P=0.018). The perceptual of fibrosis (%F) in hypertensive rats was significantly higher compared with the % F in normotensive rats (P<0.001). The rats in the HT group showed higher expression of TGF-b (P<0.001) and of IL-10 (P<0.001) when compared with the other groups.

The main conclusion is that in SHR rats it is shown a greater expression of TGF-beta, resulting in increased fibrosis in renal parenchyma due to the increased number of inflammatory cells that secrete this cytokine, and thus the practice of swimming can attenuate inflammatory processes, and mitigate the blood pressure of these animals.