Hypertension, elevated fasting blood glucose and plasma insulin develop in rats fed a high fat (HF) diet. Our goal was to assess the effects of obesity, beginning in childhood, on the adult cardiovascular system. We hypothesized that rats fed a HF diet would have larger ischemic cerebral infarcts and middle cerebral artery (MCA) remodeling. Three-week-old male Sprague Dawley rats were fed a HF (Obese) or control diet for 10 weeks. Cerebral ischemia was induced by MCA occlusion (MCAO). MCA structure was assessed by pressure myography and cerebral vessel matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity and expression and collagen levels were measured in vessels from rats that did not undergo MCAO. The cerebral infarct was greater in the obese rats than the control (46.0±2.1 vs 28.0±7.5 percent of the hemisphere infarcted, obese vs control p<0.05). The MCAs from obese rats had smaller lumens (232±7.2 vs 254±7.8μm obese vs control p<0.05) and thicker walls (19.6±0.8 vs 17.8± 0.9μm obese vs control p<0.05) and were less compliant than MCAs from control rats. MMP-2 activity and collagen I expression were increased in vessels from obese rats and MMP-13 expression was reduced. These results suggest obesity, beginning in childhood, causes inward vessel remodeling with a concomitant increase in vessel stiffness due to increased collagen deposition. These changes in MCA structure may be responsible for the increase in the ischemic damage after MCAO.
Increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production is involved in the pathogenesis of hypertension and stroke. The effects of ROS on cerebral vessels from hypertensive rats have not been studied. We hypothesized that tempol, a superoxide dismutase mimetic, would prevent middle cerebral artery (MCA) remodeling in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP). Six-week-old male SHRSP were treated with tempol (1mM) for six weeks. The MCA was then removed and mounted in a pressure myograph to study tone generation, vessel reactivity and passive vessel structure. Data are shown as mean±SEM, tempol vs control. Plasma thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were decreased by tempol treatment (14.15±1.46 vs 20.55±1.25, p=0.008 nM of malondialdehyde [MDA]/ml). Maximum serotonin induced constriction was increased by tempol treatment, without changes in dilation to adenosine diphosphate or tone generation. At an intralumenal pressure of 80 mmHg, tempol caused a dramatic increase in the MCA lumen diameter (246±5 vs 207±3μm, p<0.001), outer diameter (281±5 vs 241±3μm, p<0.001), lumen cross-sectional area and vessel cross-sectional area. Collagen IV mRNA expression were increased by 2.4-fold after tempol treatment. These results suggest that ROS are involved in the remodeling of the cerebral vasculature of SHRSP and that ROS scavenging can attenuate this process.
High soy (HS) diets are neuroprotective and promote vascular dilatation in the periphery. We hypothesized that a HS diet would promote vascular dilatation in the cerebrovasculature by mimicking estradiol's actions on the endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) system including increasing eNOS expression and decreasing caveolin-1 expression to increase nitric oxide (NO) production. Ovariectomized rats were fed HS or a soy-free diet (SF) ± low physiological estradiol (E2) for 4 weeks. Neither E2 nor HS altered middle cerebral artery (MCA) structure or vascular responses to acetylcholine, serotonin, or phenylephrine. Estradiol enhanced bradykinin-induced relaxation in an eNOS-dependent manner. Although E2 and HS increased eNOS mRNA expression in the brain and cerebrovasculature, they had no effect on eNOS protein expression or phosphorylation in the MCA. However, E2 decreased caveolin-1 protein in the MCA. In MCAs neither E2 nor HS altered estrogen receptor (ER) alpha expression, but E2 did reduce ER beta levels. These data suggest that HS diets have no effect on vascular NO production, and that E2 may modulate basal NO production by reducing the expression of caveolin-1, an allosteric inhibitor of NOS activity. However, the effects of E2 and HS on the cerebrovasculature are small and may not underlie their protective actions in pathological states.
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