Analysis of Brain Regions Activated by Afferent Renal Nerves in DOCA-Salt Hypertensive Mice

We have reported that the neurogenic component of DOCA-salt HTN is dependent on afferent renal nerves (ARNs) that modulate central autonomic networks, however, the central pathways are poorly understood. Targeted recombination in active populations (TRAP2) mice provide a model for global visualization and quantification of neuronal activity via the expression of the fluorescent reporter protein tdTomato which is expressed under the immediate-early gene, c-Fos, a neuronal activation marker, via tamoxifen-inducible Cre. In combination with the deoxycorticosterone-acetate (DOCA)-salt model of hypertension (HTN), neuronal activation in central autonomic centers can be evaluated in TRAP2 mice during DOCA-salt-induced HTN to identify the role of ARNs in the control of blood pressure. We evaluated the expression of tdTomato in TRAP2 mice as a measure of c-Fos activation following 7 days of DOCA-salt HTN and compared it to immunolabeled c-Fos at day 21 of DOCA-salt HTN in brain regions known to be involved in blood pressure regulation. We hypothesized that DOCA will increase the expression of tdTomato and c-Fos in mice with intact renal nerves and that afferent renal denervation (ARDN) will attenuate this DOCA-induced neuronal activity. Three groups of TRAP2-DOCA mice were studied: normotensive (Vehicle-Sham), hypertensive (DOCA-Sham), hypertensive with ARDN (DOCA-ARDN). Mice received a nephrectomy, sham or ARDN, implant of 50mg DOCA and 0.9% saline drinking water for the length of the study (drug-free pellet and diH 2 O for vehicle). TRAP2-DOCA-salt mice received an injection of 5mg/mL 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4-OHT), a short acting tamoxifen metabolite, on day 7 to induce Cre recombination and expression of tdTomato during the development of HTN. On day 21, mice were anesthetized and perfused with 4% paraformaldehyde. Brains were immunolabeled for c-Fos expression indicating day 21 neuronal activation and compared to endogenous Cre-induced tdTomato expression from day 7 4-OHT. Preliminary data indicate increased neuronal activity in TRAP2 DOCA-Sham mice compared to Vehicle-Sham in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, lateral parabrachial nucleus, and nucleus of the solitary tract. This activation pattern was reduced in TRAP2 DOCA-ARDN compared to TRAP2 DOCA-Sham mice. A future study will evaluate c-Fos expression in wild-type DOCA-salt mice at day 7 and 21 of DOCA-salt HTN development to validate the observations in the TRAP2-DOCA model. This experiment will also validate TRAPing as a method for measuring neuronal activation at two time points within the same animal. These preliminary results establish an anatomical foundation for future investigations into the physiological role of ARN input to central autonomic control centers that regulate blood pressure in a salt-induced hypertensive model. NIH R01 HL116476. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.