Adverse changes occur gradually in the skeletal muscles with age via continuous exposure to oxidative stress. Quercetin, a member of the flavonoids family, possesses anti-oxidative and radical-scavenging activities. Therefore, this study investigated the role of quercetin to modulate age-induced changes in the transcript levels of some apoptosis-related genes in rat’s gastrocnemius muscles, up to 15 months-old. Half of the rats at each age (1, 5, 10 and 15 months old) were given a vehicle and the other half was given 200 mg/kg quercetin for 2 weeks, respectively. With the increase of age, vehicle groups showed hyalinization of the muscle fibers and a decrease of the catalase and an increase of the malondialdehyde levels. Down-regulation of Bcl2 gene and... |