Immune mechanisms in physical activity and cancer

体育锻炼对降低患结肠癌的风险很重要。关于体育活动如何预防这种癌症的潜在生物学原理尚不清楚。了解基本的生物学机制是必要的，这样我们就可以设计出最有效的锻炼计划，以降低不同人群（例如，老年人，有癌症家族史的人，等等）患结肠癌的风险。这项NSERC资助的研究主要关注小鼠胃肠道（肠和结肠）中的免疫细胞，即T淋巴细胞。这项研究的问题是，长期的中等强度运动训练是否能1)防止（或减少）肠道中杀死癌细胞的免疫细胞的死亡，2)通过增加这些免疫细胞中的抗氧化剂来防止（或减少）肠道炎症的发生。为了验证这些假设，雌性老鼠将在几个月的时间里自愿进入跑步轮，或者静坐（没有跑步轮）。在运动训练结束时，将从小鼠胃肠道中取出免疫细胞（T淋巴细胞），并测试其抗癌功能、抗氧化酶水平和生存能力。这些研究将为确定体育锻炼是否能增强肠道免疫细胞的抗肿瘤和抗炎功能提供第一步。

Physical activity is important for reducing one's risk of colon cancer. The underlying biology about how physical activity protects against this cancer is not known. Understanding the basic biological mechanisms is necessary so that we can design the most effective exercise programs to lower the colon cancer risk for different groups of individuals (for example, seniors, people with a family history of cancer, etc.). This NSERC funded research focuses on immune cells, known as T lymphocytes, in the gastrointestinal tract (intestine and colon) of mice. The research asks whether long term moderate-intensity exercise training 1) prevents (or lessens) the death of immune cells in the bowel which kill cancer cells and 2) prevents (or lessens) the occurrence of inflammation in the bowel by increasing anti-oxidants in these immune cells. To test these hypotheses, female mice will have voluntary access to running wheels for many months or will be sedentary (no running wheels). At the end of the exercise training, immune cells (T lymphocytes) from the gastrointestinal tract of the mice will be removed and tested for anti-cancer functions, for the levels of anti-oxidant enzymes, and for viability. These studies will provide the first step to determine if physical activity increases the anti-tumour and anti-inflammatory functions of immune cells in the bowel.