PPARα gene variation and phisycal performance in italian soccer players

Abstract

PURPOSE: One of the genes of the health-related fitness phenotype is a PPARα coding for peroxisome proliferator activator receptor alpha, a central regulator of expression of genes involved in fatty acid metabolism. The aim of our research was to study the role of polymorphism of PPARα gene in performance enhancing in Italian soccer players. METHODS: Sixty professional soccer players and thirty sedentary volunteers were enrolled in the study. Samples of venous blood were obtained at rest in the morning by conventional clinical procedures. Serum was collected and lipid profile was measured by using a commercial kit. An aliquote of anticoagulant-treated blood was used to prepare genomic DNA from mononuclear cells. The polymorphic site in PPARα intron 7 was scanned by using PCR-RFLP protocol with Taq I enzyme. RESULTS: We found variations among genotype distribution of PPARα in professional soccer players versus sedentary volunteers. To enphatyzed this correlation, we also investigated lipidic profile variation. CONCLUSIONS: Our results evidenced an high expression of G allele as well as GG genotype in accordance with other studies that associate this genotype with endurance performance. So PPARα G allele may be considered an endurance relates allele. We can explain this one because PPARα is an important factor that regulate the balance between fatty acid and glucose metabolism. Moreover, we analyzed the correlation between G allele distribution and athletes lipid profile but we didn’t find any correlation.