Structural and functional prevention of hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension by individualized exercise training in mice
AJP Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology
Published online on April 11, 2014
Abstract
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a disease with a poor prognosis characterized by a vascular remodeling process and an increase in pulmonary vascular resistance. While a variety of reports demonstrated that exercise training exerts beneficial effects on exercise performance and quality of life in PH patients it is not known how physical exercise affects vascular remodeling processes occurring in hypoxia-induced PH. Therefore, we investigated the effect of individualized exercise training on the development of hypoxia-induced PH in mice. Training effects were compared to pharmacological treatment with the PDE5 inhibitor Sildenafil or a combination of training plus Sildenafil. Trained mice who received Sildenafil showed a significantly improved walking distance (from 88.9±8.1m to 146.4±13.1m) and maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max from 93.3 ± 2.9% to 105.5 ± 2.2% in combination with Sildenafil, to 102.2 ± 3.0% with Placebo) compared to sedentary controls. Right ventricular systolic pressure, measured by telemetry, was at the level of healthy normoxic animals, whereas right heart hypertrophy did not benefit from training. Most interestingly, the increase in small pulmonary vessel muscularization was prevented by training. Respective counter regulatory processes were detected for the NO-soluble guanylate cyclase-phosphodiesterase system. We conclude that individualized daily exercise can prevent vascular remodeling in hypoxia-induced PH.