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(Hypertension. 2001;37:511.)
© 2001 American Heart Association, Inc.
Scientific Contributions |
From the Vascular Physiology Group, Department of Cell Biology and Physiology (N.L.K., B.R.W.) and Department of Pediatrics (L.D.N.), University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM.
Correspondence to Nancy L. Kanagy, PhD, Vascular Physiology Group, Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0218. E-mail nkanagy{at}salud.unm.edu
| Abstract |
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Key Words: apnea endothelin rats hypoxia
| Introduction |
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Several mediators have been evaluated as contributors to sleep apnea associated hypertension. These include increased sympathetic nervous system activity,5 decreased responses to nitric oxide,6 and elevated endothelin production.7 Clinical studies have shown that plasma endothelin levels are elevated in patients awakened after apneic episodes compared with patients awakened from normal sleep. Furthermore, this same study found that correction of sleep apnea reduced plasma endothelin to control levels.8 9 However, Grimpen and coworkers10 compared patients with obstructive sleep apnea with age- and weight-matched control subjects and found no differences in plasma levels of endothelin and no change in plasma endothelin after correction of the sleep apnea. Therefore, clinical studies do not provide a clear indication of the role of endothelin in sleep apneainduced hypertension.
Several animal models have been developed to address the mechanism of sleep apneainduced hypertension. These studies have suggested that plasma catecholamines are elevated in rats exposed to intermittent hypoxia during their sleep period.11 Furthermore, sympathodenervation with 6-hydroxydopamine prevents an increase in blood pressure in rats exposed to intermittent hypoxia.11 However, animal studies have not yet investigated the role of endothelin in sleep apneainduced hypertension. This is especially intriguing because endothelin can augment activity in the sympathetic nervous system,12 and the sympathetic nervous system appears to be upregulated in dog and rat models of sleep apnea.11 In addition, hypoxia increases expression of endothelin in both cultured cells and in animals,13 and elevated plasma endothelin causes hypertension.14 15 Therefore, increased endothelin production during sleep apnea could cause the hypertension and elevated sympathetic nervous system activity previously observed. We hypothesized that intermittent hypoxia induced by sleep apnea stimulates endothelin production; endothelin (ET)-1 production remains elevated during wakeful periods, and ET-1 contributes to hypertension. We tested this hypothesis by using chronically instrumented rats to investigate the time course of hypertension development and the involvement of endothelin in the response.
| Methods |
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Intermittent Hypoxia Protocol
Rats were allowed 3 to 5 days of recovery from
surgery before being exposed to either intermittent
hypoxia/hypercapnia (IH) or control. Rats were housed in
Plexiglas chambers and exposed to either IH or air-air for 7 to 8 hours
each day for 11 days. During exposure, the atmosphere in the boxes was
controlled by a constant flow of gas through the boxes with a dampening
device placed over the gas inlet to dissipate the gas stream. For the
IH exposure, the atmosphere alternated every 90 seconds between
compressed air (21% O2/79%
N2) and hypoxic/hypercapnic air (5%
O2/5% CO2/90%
N2). The resultant changes in the percent
O2 and CO2 in the chamber
are shown in
Figure 1. For control exposure, the atmosphere alternated
every 90 seconds between two room air mixtures, simulating the noise
and airflow disturbance associated with the protocol. Resting
mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) were
recorded daily before the start of exposure while the animals were
in room air by connecting the exposed arterial line to a
pressure transducer. The signal from the pressure transducer was fed
through an amplifier and recorded on both a chart recorder and
on a computer data acquisition system (Codas, Dataq).
O2 and CO2 content of the
chambers was also recorded throughout the exposure period, and the
inflow of gas was adjusted to achieve 5% O2/5%
CO2 during the IH period and 21%
O2/<1% CO2 during the
air period. Gas flow in air-air exposures was equivalent to that used
in the IH exposures.
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Endothelin Antagonist
Infusions
On day 11, after the daily recording, the
nonselective endothelin receptor antagonist PD145065
(dissolved in PBS) was administered through the venous line to evaluate
the contribution of endothelin to the maintenance of blood
pressure. Five bolus doses were administered sequentially in a
cumulative manner (0.3, 3.0, 30, 300, and 1000 nmol/kg), 1 every 10
minutes. Blood pressure and HR were recorded continuously and for
30 minutes after the final dose. These doses were chosen on the basis
of the published observation that 1- to 10-µmol/kg boluses of
PD145065 effectively blocked pressor responses to ET-1
infusion.17
Plasma Endothelin Measurement
Plasma was collected from rats on days 1, 5, and 11
before the start of the exposure period by withdrawing 1 milliliter of
arterial blood into a heparinized syringe. Blood was
centrifuged and the plasma withdrawn and stored at -80°C
until analyzed. Red blood cells were resuspended in heparinized
saline and returned to the rat through the arterial
catheter. At the time of the assay, ET-1 was extracted from thawed
plasma samples with Amprep 500-mg C2 columns (Amersham Pharmacia).
Plasma was loaded onto the columns, eluted with methanol, and the
eluate dried in a centrifugal evaporator. The pellet was reconstituted
with 250 mL of 20 mmol/L borate buffer (pH 7.4) and assayed for
ET-1. Radioimmunoassay for ET-1 was performed on extracted plasma with
a commercially available kit (Amersham
Pharmacia).
Statistical Analysis
Data are expressed as mean±SEM. MAP, HR, and plasma
ET-1 levels from IH rats and air-air rats over time was compared by
means of 2-way ANOVA. Differences were identified by a
Student-Newman-Keuls post hoc test, and a significance level of
P
0.05 was
used.
| Results |
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Plasma Endothelin Levels
Plasma ET-1 levels, measured on days 1, 5, and 11
before IH or air-air cycling, showed a time-dependent increase in the
IH rats but did not change throughout the 11-day protocol in the
control rats
(Figure 4). These studies demonstrate that IH is associated
with increased ET-1 production at a time when the rats are
hypertensive.
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Response to Endothelin Receptor
Antagonist PD145065
To determine the contribution of circulating endothelin
to maintenance of arterial pressure, we
administered the nonselective endothelin receptor
antagonist PD145065. We observed a concentration-dependent
decrease in MAP that was significant only in the IH group
(Figure 5). The fall in MAP was rapid and sustained in the
IH-exposed rats, persisting for
30 minutes after
antagonist administration. In the air-air group, there was
no significant change in blood pressure in response to
PD145065.
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| Discussion |
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Patients with sleep apnea have as many as 100 episodes of apnea per hour of sleep.1 Apneic periods are caused by complete or partial airway closure. Thus, patients with sleep apnea also have disturbed sleep and daytime sleepiness.18 In most animal models of sleep apnea, the animals continue to breathe throughout the hypoxic period, and the regulated atmosphere reduces inspired oxygen to simulate apneic conditions. This type of animal model also mimics the disturbed sleep seen in patients with sleep apnea. It is possible that either the IH per se or the disturbed sleep could lead to hypertension. However, it has been demonstrated that periodic waking in dogs who had intermittent tracheal occlusions during sleep had significantly higher daytime arterial pressure compared with dogs that had their sleep disturbed without tracheal occlusion.19 In addition, exposing rats to 6 seconds of noise stimulation every 30 seconds, 7 hours a day, for 35 days did not cause an increase in systemic blood pressure.20 Similarly, the air-air rats in the current study were subjected to the same noise and airflow alterations as the IH rats without the change in atmospheric content, and they did not develop hypertension. Together, these studies support that it is IH and not disturbed sleep that causes hypertension.
Previous animal models of sleep apnea with similar exposure protocols with varying degrees of intermittent hypoxia have not all found that IH leads to hypertension. In agreement with our study, Fletcher et al11 21 have consistently shown an increase in arterial pressure after 35 days of 8 hours per day IH (3% to 5% O2). In contrast, a study of rats exposed to intermittent hypoxia (6% O2) for 70 days found no change in resting MAP in either normotensive or spontaneously hypertensive rats.22 Therefore, the exposure conditions and duration of exposure may affect the magnitude of the IH-induced hypertension. However, in our study, it is apparent that 20 cycles per hour of IH for 8 hours a day elevated blood pressure significantly within 1 week.
Our study provides evidence for the first time that rats exposed to IH have increased circulating ET-1 that could mediate at least part of the developed hypertension. This is in agreement with a clinical study by Phillips et al,9 who found that after 4 hours of sleep with spontaneous apneic episodes, MAP and ET-1 both increased significantly compared with presleep levels. However, preventing the apneic episodes for an additional 5 hours of sleep with constant positive airway pressure returned MAP and ET-1 levels to presleep levels. This study therefore suggests that intermittent hypoxia can directly stimulate ET-1 production and that the persistent elevation in plasma ET-1 observed in our study was stimulated by the daily IH exposures.
It has been previously shown that elevated plasma ET-1 directly contributes to the development of the systemic hypertension by increasing vascular resistance.15 In addition, endothelin receptor antagonists lower blood pressure in certain forms of hypertension including spontaneously hypertensive rats and postmyocardial infarction hypertension.23 Clinical studies indicate that ET-A receptor antagonists are effective antihypertensive agents and improve the prognosis after congestive heart failure.24 Our data from the nonselective endothelin receptor antagonist PD145065 suggest that elevated circulating ET-1 directly contributes to the hypertension in IH-exposed rats.
In an attempt to more closely mimic sleep apnea, we used hypercapnia in addition to hypoxia. It has been suggested that the combination of hypoxia and hypercapnia may cause a more profound stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system than hypoxia alone.25 Furthermore, ET-1 release has been shown to enhance sympathetic vasoconstriction.26 Thus, the mechanism of IH-induced hypertension in the present study could also involve ET-1 stimulation of sympathetic nervous system activity, although the lack of increase in HR does not necessarily support this contention.
Our results suggest that elevated circulating ET-1 is the mechanism of the increased blood pressure after exposure to IH, whereas previous studies indicate that hypoxia is the likely stimulus for increased ET-1 in this setting. For example, hypoxia has been shown to be a potent stimulus for increased ET-1 production in cultured cells.27 In addition, exposure to chronic hypoxia is associated with increased plasma ET-1 in both animal28 and human studies.29 Interestingly, plasma ET-1 levels in IH rats remain elevated after 16 hours of normoxia on days 5 and 11 and increase progressively with repeated IH exposure. This is similar to increases in plasma endothelin observed with chronic hypoxia.30 However, animals and patients exposed to chronic hypoxia, for example, high altitude, do not develop significant systemic hypertension.31 32 Taken together, these data suggest that factors other than hypoxia induction of ET-1 are involved in IH-induced hypertension. It has been shown that chronic hypoxia decreases vascular sensitivity to vasoconstrictors,33 34 so that elevated ET-1 levels under that setting may not stimulate increased systemic blood pressure. In contrast, sleep apnea has been associated with increased vasoconstrictor responses6 35 and decreased vasodilator responses.6 Therefore, increased vascular reactivity coupled with elevated circulating ET-1 may contribute to the pathogenesis of IH-induced hypertension.
Conclusions
We found that intermittent hypoxia leads to
systemic hypertension during normoxic breathing in the rat, analogous
to daytime hypertension in patients with sleep apnea. The hypertension
was associated with increased circulating ET-1 plasma levels and was
reversed by the infusion of the nonselective endothelin receptor
antagonist PD 145,065. Therefore, sleep apneainduced
hypertension may be another form of human
cardiovascular disease dependent on elevated ET-1
production and may be responsive to treatment with endothelin
receptor
antagonists.
| Acknowledgments |
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Received October 26, 2000; first decision November 28, 2000; accepted December 11, 2000.
| References |
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