Inhibition of apoptosis by 60% oxygen: a novel pathway contributing to lung injury in neonatal rats

During early postnatal alveolar formation, the lung tissue of rat pups undergoes a physiological remodeling involving apoptosis of distal lung cells. Exposure of neonatal rats to severe hyperoxia (≥95% O(2)) both arrests lung growth and results in increased lung cell apoptosis. In contrast, exposure to moderate hyperoxia (60% O(2)) for 14 days does not completely arrest lung cell proliferation and is associated with parenchymal thickening. On the basis of similarities in lung architecture observed following either exposure to 60% O(2), or pharmacological inhibition of physiological apoptosis, we hypothesized that exposure to 60% O(2) would result in an inhibition of physiological lung cell apoptosis. Consistent with this hypothesis, we observed that the parenchymal thickening induced by exposure to 60% O(2) was associated with decreased numbers of apoptotic cells, increased expressions of the antiapoptotic regulator Bcl-xL, and the putative antiapoptotic protein survivin, and decreased expressions of the proapoptotic cleaved caspases-3 and -7. In summary, exposure of the neonatal rat lung to moderate hyperoxia results in an inhibition of physiological apoptosis, which contributes to the parenchymal thickening observed in the resultant lung injury.