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Review
. 2023 Mar 1;134(3):685-691.
doi: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00711.2022. Epub 2023 Jan 26.

Sexually dimorphic hepatic mitochondrial adaptations to exercise: a mini-review

Affiliations
Review

Sexually dimorphic hepatic mitochondrial adaptations to exercise: a mini-review

Benjamin A Kugler et al. J Appl Physiol (1985). .

Abstract

Exercise is a physiological stress that disrupts tissue and cellular homeostasis while enhancing systemic metabolic energy demand mainly through the increased workload of skeletal muscle. Although the extensive focus has been on skeletal muscle adaptations to exercise, the liver senses these disruptions in metabolic energy homeostasis and responds to provide the required substrates to sustain increased demand. Hepatic metabolic flexibility is an energetically costly process that requires continuous mitochondrial production of the cellular currency ATP. To do so, the liver must maintain a healthy functioning mitochondrial pool, attained through well-regulated and dynamic processes. Intriguingly, some of these responses are sex-dependent. This mini-review examines the hepatic mitochondrial adaptations to exercise with a focus on sexual dimorphism.

Keywords: exercise; liver; mitochondria; mitophagy; respiration.

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Conflict of interest statement

No conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, are declared by the authors.

John Thyfault is an editor of Journal of Applied Physiology and was not involved and did not have access to information regarding the peer-review process or final disposition of this article. An alternate editor oversaw the peer-review and decision-making process for this article.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Overview of exercise-induced hepatic mitochondrial adaptations. ROS, reactive oxygen species. This figure was created using BioRender.

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