Changes in novel anti-infalmmatory cytokine concetration in the bood of endurance and race horses at different levels of training

Urszula Plisak; Jarosław Szczepaniak; Magdalena Żmigrodzka; Beata Giercuszkiewicz-Hecold; Olga Witkowska-Piłaszewicz

doi:10.1016/j.csbj.2022.12.016

Changes in novel anti-infalmmatory cytokine concetration in the bood of endurance and race horses at different levels of training

Comput Struct Biotechnol J. 2022 Dec 13:21:418-424. doi: 10.1016/j.csbj.2022.12.016. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Urszula Plisak^{1

2}, Jarosław Szczepaniak², Magdalena Żmigrodzka², Beata Giercuszkiewicz-Hecold², Olga Witkowska-Piłaszewicz^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Large Animal Diseases and Clinic, Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
² Department of Pathology and Veterinary Diagnostics, Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.

Abstract

Several anti-inflammatory cytokines have been proposed as markers for exercise monitoring in humans such as the interleukin 1 receptor agonist (IL-ra), or interleukin 13 (IL-13). Equine athletes may be considered a model for human exercise physiology research, however there is a lack of such studies of this species. Thus, we decided to examine the changes of IL-1ra and IL-13 in serum concentration during aerobic (endurance) and anaerobic (race) exercise in horses of different fitness levels in comparison with the well-known anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin 10 (IL-10). The group of endurance horses (n = 13) consisted of animals competing over 100 (n = 7) and 120 km (n = 6) rides. The group of racehorses (n = 18) consisted of trained (n = 9) and untrained (n = 9) animals. The blood samples were obtained before and after the exercise. The ELISA test was performed to evaluate the changes of IL-1ra, IL-13 and IL-10 during different types of exercise. In endurance horses there was an increase in IL-13 (p = 0.0012) after the 100 km ride and in IL-1ra (p = 0.0411) after the 120 km ride. In race horses there was a higher IL-13 basal serum concentration in the untrained group, as well as a decrease of IL-13 after exercise (p = 0.0188). In trained racehorses there was an increase in IL-1ra (p < 0.0001) and IL-13 after exercise (p = 0.0028). In conclusion, the reaction of IL-1ra and IL-13 to different types of exercise differ from each other. Thus, in future, they may be helpful in monitoring the fitness of horses, however more research is needed.

Keywords: IL-10; IL-13; IL-1ra; Inflammatory response; Myokines.