Genome wide association study of response to interval and continuous exercise training: the Predict-HIIT study.

Background Low cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2peak) is highly associated with chronic disease and mortality from all causes. Whilst exercise training is recommended in health guidelines to improve VO2peak, there is considerable inter-individual variability in the VO2peak response to the same dose of exercise. Understanding how genetic factors contribute to VO2peak training response may improve personalisation of exercise programs. The aim of this study was to identify genetic variants that are associated with the magnitude of VO2peak response following exercise training. Methods Participant change in objectively measured VO2peak from 18 different interventions was obtained from a multi-centre study (Predict-HIIT). A genome-wide association study was completed (n = 507), and a polygenic predictor score (PPS) was developed using alleles from single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) significantly associated (P Results No variants at the genome-wide significance level were found after adjusting for key covariates (baseline VO2peak, individual study, principal components which were significantly associated with the trait). A Quantile-Quantile plot indicates there was minor inflation in the study. Twelve novel loci showed a trend of association with VO2peak response that reached suggestive significance (P 0.1). Significant correlations were found for beta coefficients of variants in the Predict-HIIT (P Conclusions Ongoing research and validation of current and previous findings is needed to determine if genetics does play a large role in VO2peak response variance, and whether genomic predictors for VO2peak response trainability can inform evidence-based clinical practice. Trial registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR), Trial Id: ACTRN12618000501246, Date Registered: 06/04/2018, http://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=374601&isReview=true .