The DOI matches its Crossref record; 89 of the 90 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Physical Exercise and Epigenetic Modifications in Skeletal Muscle
Abstract
Physical activity and sports play major roles in the overall health status of humans. It is well known that regular exercise helps to lower the risk for a broad variety of health problems, such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. Being physically active induces a wide variety of molecular adaptations, for example fiber type switches or other metabolic alterations, in skeletal muscle tissue. These adaptations are based on exercise-induced changes to the skeletal muscle transcriptome. Understanding their nature is crucial to improve the development of exercise-based therapeutic strategies. Recent research indicates that specifically epigenetic mechanisms, i.e., pathways that induce changes in gene expression patterns without altering the DNA base sequence, might play a major role in controlling skeletal muscle transcriptional patterns. Epigenetic mechanisms include DNA and histone modifications, as well as expression of specific microRNAs. They can be modulated by environmental factors or external stimuli, such as exercise, and eventually induce specific and fine-tuned changes to the transcriptional response. In this review, we highlight current knowledge on epigenetic changes induced in exercising skeletal muscle, their target genes, and resulting phenotypic changes. In addition, we raise the question of whether epigenetic modifications might serve as markers for the design and management of optimized and individualized training protocols, as prognostic tools to predict training adaptation, or even as targets for the design of "exercise mimics".
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“Human studies examining resistance training adaptations suggest that repeated loading may be associated with reduced methylation at rDNA loci and with lower expression of specific DNMTs [121,182].”
From Ribosome Biogenesis as a Putative Bottleneck to Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy: Mechanisms, Human Evidence, and Practical Modulators (2026) · cites this paper as [182]
In the citing paper
“This mechanism has been discussed in relation to the concept of muscle memory, insofar as a more permissive epigenetic profile could facilitate renewed transcriptional activation during retraining [124,182].”
From Ribosome Biogenesis as a Putative Bottleneck to Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy: Mechanisms, Human Evidence, and Practical Modulators (2026) · cites this paper as [182]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Widmann, M., Nieß, A. M., & Munz, B.
- Affiliations
- University of Tübingen (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Munz, Barbara
- Venue
- Sports Medicine
- Published
- 2019-02-19
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 509-523
- ISSN
- 0112-1642 (ISSN-L)
- 1179-2035
- OpenAlex
- W2917335963
- Cited by
- 165
- References
- 90
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 8
- FWCI
- 2.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Sports Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Minigraduiertenkolleg iReAct
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetics and Physical Performance
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Epigenetics and DNA Methylation
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Muscle Physiology and Disorders
- Keywords
- physical activity, epigenetic modifications, skeletal muscle, exercise-induced gene expression, DNA methylation, histone modifications, microRNA, muscle fiber type shift, exercise adaptation, exercise mimetics, training protocols, exercise biomarkers
- MeSH terms
- Endurance Training, Adaptation, Physiological, Age Factors, Gene Expression Regulation, Histones, Humans, Protein Processing, Post-Translational, Exercise, Muscle, Skeletal, MicroRNAs, Epigenesis, Genetic, Resistance Training, Transcriptome
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