The animals receiving AICAR improved their running performance and their ability to burn fat. None of these effects, however, were as strong as they were in the animals that received both exercise and activation of PPAR-delta via GW1516.
Evans said this indicates that the benefits are likely due to collaboration between cells' AMPK and PPAR-delta signaling pathways. The team's genetic analyses supported this hypothesis; they found that AICAR and GW1516 alone activated a subset of exercise-induced genes, but activating both pathways (by combining GW1516 with exercise) activated a larger group of genes. Many of those genes regulate metabolism and muscle remodeling. Evans and his colleagues called this the “endurance gene signature.”
Like exercise, AICAR and GW1516 trigger a variety of changes that contribute to muscles cells' improved endurance and ability to burn fat. These changes include an increase in mitochondria, the structures responsible for producing energy; a shift in metabolism that takes advantage of lipids as an energy source; and an increase in blood flow, which enables the steady delivery of fat to burn. While the scientists only examined the drugs' effects on muscle cells in this study, Evans says it is likely that they confer benefits on other systems impacted by exercise, such as the heart and lungs.
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