(School of Physical Education,Zhengzhou University,Zhengzhou 450044,China) Abstract: In order to observe the effects of one-time high intensity exhaustive exercise and pyrrolidine dithiocar-bamate (PDTC, an NF-κB inhibitor) supplementation on rat’s knee articular cartilage inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), nitric oxide (NO) content, matrix metalloproteinase-13 proenzyme (pro-MMP-13) and active-MMP-13, so as to probe into a possible mechanism of over-exercise inducing iNOS expression increase and causing cartilage in-jury, the author divided 40 SD rats randomly into 4 groups, namely, a control group (group C), a PDTC fed group (group P), an exercise group (group E), and an exercise + PDTC fed group (group EP), injected 1 mL of normal sa-line into the abdominal cavity of the rats in group C, injected 200 mg/kg of PDTC into the abdominal cavity of the rats in group P, injected 1ml of normal saline into the abdominal cavity of the rats in group E and then let them do an one-time high intensity exhaustive exercise, injected PDTC into the abdominal cavity of the rats in group EP and then let them do an one-time exhaustive exercise, 2 h after the experiment, extracted synovia, measured NO content by using the nitrate reductase method, observed morphological cartilage changes by means of HE dyeing and de-termined Mankin’s scores, measured iNOS and MMP-13 mRNA levels by means of real-time fluorescent quantifi-cation PCR, measured iNOS, pro-MMP-13 and active-MMP-13 protein expression levels by using the western blot method, measured the activity of combination of NF-κB and DNA by means of electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), and revealed the following findings: comparing the rats in groups E and EP with the rats in group C, Man-kin’s scores, synovial NO content, iNOS and MMP-13 mRNA levels, iNOS and active-MMP-13 protein levels, and the activity of combination of NF–κB and DNA increased very significantly (P<0.01); comparing the rats in group EP with the rats in group E, all the said indexes decreased very significantly (P<0.01); there was no significant dif-ference in protein pro-MMP-13 level between the rats in various groups. The said findings indicated that one-time high intensity exhaustive exercise mediated iNOS expression increase via NF-κB signal pathway, boosted the mass discharge of NO and the activation of MMP-13, thus participated the process of cartilage injury. Key words: sports medicine;exhaustive exercise;NF-κB;iNOS;cartilage;traumatic osteoarthritis;rat |