Genetic Variants and Mixed Sport Disciplines: A Comparison among Soccer, Combat and Motorcycle Athletes

Background. Soccer, combat sports and motorcycling have all been classified as mixed in terms of their metabolism predominance thus showing a common multifaceted nature of physical requirements, which include aerobic capacity, strength, endurance, power and agility. Objectives. The aim of the current study was to compare allelic and genotype frequencies of four well-known polymorphisms among athletes from different mixed sport disciplines in order to investigate genetic markers suitable for distinguishing the predominant components of these sports. Methods. Genotyping for the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) insertion/deletion (I/D), α-actinin-3 (ACTN3) R577X, muscle‐specific creatine kinase (CK-MM) A/G and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) G/C polymorphisms among 113 professional athletes from motorcycling, soccer and combat sports was performed by PCR-RFLP method. Results. We found that the G allele of the PPARα polymorphism was significantly (p