Key result
Chronic hypoxia increases myocardial ATP/PCr response elasticity ~4-fold in mice.
Why the study?
The regulation of heart energetics and adaptive cardiac metabolism under chronic hypoxia remains incompletely understood, particularly regarding ATP/PCr production and consumption control mechanisms.
Absolute Event Rate: -10.4% vs -2.46%
Does not support changes in clinical hypoxia management; extends preclinical cardiac energetics data and leaves open human relevance.
Modular control analysis (MoCA; Diolez P, Deschodt-Arsac V, Raffard G, Simon C, Santos PD, Thiaudiere E, Arsac L, Franconi JM. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 293: R13-R19, 2007) was applied here on perfused hearts to describe the modifications of the regulation of heart energetics induced in mice exposed to 3-wk chronic hypoxia. MoCA combines 31P-NMR spectroscopy and modular (top down) control analysis to describe the integrative regulation of energy metabolism in the intact beating heart, on the basis of two modules [ATP/phosphocreatine (PCr) production and ATP/PCr consumption] connected by the energetic intermediates. In contrast with previous results in rat heart, in which all control of contraction was on ATP demand, mouse heart energetics presented a shared control of contraction between ATP/PCr-producing and -consuming modules. In chronic hypoxic mice, the decrease in heart contractile activity and PCr-to-ATP ratio was surprisingly associated with an important and significant higher response of ATP/PCr production (elasticity) to PCr changes compared with control hearts (-10.4 vs. -2.46). By contrast, no changes were observed in ATP/PCr consumption since comparable elasticities were observed. Since elasticities determine the regulation of energetics of heart contraction, the present results show that this new parameter may be used to uncover the origin of the observed dysfunctions under chronic hypoxia conditions. Considering the decrease in mitochondrial content reported after exposure to chronic hypoxia, it appears that the improvement of ATP/PCr production response to ATP demand may be viewed as a positive adaptative mechanism. It now appears crucial to understand the very processes responsible for ATP/PCr producer elasticity toward the energetic intermediates, as well as their regulation.
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Calmettes et al. (2008) studied Chronic hypoxia. Chronic hypoxia vs. Control hearts (normoxia) was evaluated on ATP/PCr production response (elasticity) to PCr changes. Exposure to 3 weeks of chronic hypoxia in mice resulted in a significantly higher ATP/PCr production response (elasticity) to PCr changes compared to control hearts (-10.4 vs. -2.46).
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