Housing temperature influences exercise training adaptations in mice

Abstract

Exercise training is a powerful means to combat metabolic pathologies. Mice are extensively used to describe the benefits of exercise, but mild cold stress induced by housing temperatures may confound translation to humans. Thermoneutral housing is a strategy to make mice more metabolically similar to humans but its effects on exercise adaptations are unknown. Using voluntary wheel running, we show that thermoneutral housing blunted exercise-induced improvements in insulin action in muscle and adipose tissue. Moreover, thermoneutrality reduced the effects of training on energy expenditure, body composition, muscle and adipose tissue protein expressions, and the gut microbiome. The majority of these thermoneutral-dependent training adaptations could not be ascribed to a lower voluntary running volume. Thus, we conclude that organismal adaptations to exercise training in mice critically depend upon housing temperature. Our findings underscore the importance of housing temperature as an important parameter in the design and interpretation of murine exercise studies.\n\nHighlightsO_LIHousing at 30{degrees}C blunts several adaptations to exercise training in mice\nC_LIO_LIExercise-sensitive protein induction is dampened at 30{degrees}C in skeletal muscle\nC_LIO_LI30{degrees}C-housing blunts training-induced increase in insulin-stimulated glucose uptake\nC_LIO_LIGlucose tolerance is not improved by voluntary exercise training at 30{degrees}C housing\nC_LIO_LIDecreased running in 30{degrees}C housing is not due to overheating\nC_LI\n\nO_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=200 SRC=\"FIGDIR/small/651588v1_ufig1.gif\" ALT=\"Figure 1\">\nView larger version (68K):\norg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1e5b6acorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@3be37corg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1d3febborg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@f8da30_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG Graphical abstract\n\nC_FIG