Fast hyperbaric decompression after heliox saturation altered the brain proteome in rats.

Better understanding of the physiological mechanisms and neurological symptoms involved in the development of decompression sickness could contribute to improvements of diving procedures. The main objective of the present study was to determine effects on the brain proteome of fast decompression (1 bar/20 s) compared to controls (1 bar/10 min) after heliox saturation diving, using rats in a model system. The protein S100B, considered a biomarker for brain injury, was not significantly different in serum samples from one week before, immediately after, and one week after the dive. Alterations in the rat brain proteome due to fast decompression were investigated using both iontrap and orbitrap LC-MS, and 967 and 1062 proteins were quantified, respectively. Based on the significantly regulated proteins in the iontrap (56) and orbitrap (128) datasets, the networks "synaptic vesicle fusion and recycling in nerve terminals" and "translation initiation" were significantly enriched in a system biological database analysis (Metacore). Ribosomal proteins (RLA2, RS10) and the proteins hippocalcin-like protein 4 and proteasome subunit beta type-7 were significantly upregulated in both datasets. The heat shock protein 105 kDa, Rho-associated protein kinase 2 and Dynamin-1 were significantly downregulated in both datasets. Another main effect of hyperbaric fast decompression in our experiment is inhibition of endocytosis and stimulation of exocytosis of vesicles in the presynaptic nerve terminal. In addition, fast decompression affected several proteins taking parts in these two main mechanisms of synaptic strength, especially alteration in CDK5/calcineurin are associated with a broad range of neurological disorders. In summary, fast decompression after heliox saturation affected the brain proteome in a rat model for diving, potentially disturbing protein homeostasis, e.g. in synaptic vesicles, and destabilizing cytoskeletal components. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD006349.

Simulated diving after heat stress potentiates the induction of heat shock protein 70 and elevates glutathione in human endothelial cells.

Heat stress prior to diving has been shown to confer protection against endothelial damage due to decompression sickness. Several lines of evidence indicate a relation between such protection and the heat shock protein (HSP)70 and HSP90 and the major cellular red-ox determinant, glutathione (GSH). The present study has used human endothelial cells as a model system to investigate how heat stress and simulated diving affect these central cellular defense molecules. The results demonstrated for the first time that a simulated dive at 2.6 MPa (26 bar) had a potentiating effect on the heat-induced expression of HSP70, increasing the HSP70 concentration on average 54 times above control level. In contrast, a simulated dive had no significant potentiating effect on the HSP90 level, which might be due to the higher baseline level of HSP90. Both 2 and 24-h dive had similar effects on the HSP70 and HSP90, suggesting that the observed effects were independent of duration of the dive. The rapid HSP response following a 2-h dive with a decompression time of 5 min might suggest that the effects were due to compression or pressure per se rather than decompression and may involve posttranslational processing of HSP. The exposure order seemed to be critical for the HSP70 response supporting the suggestion that the potentiating effect of dive was not due to de novo synthesis of HSP70. Neither heat shock nor a simulated dive had any significant effect on the intracellular GSH level while a heat shock and a subsequent dive increased the total GSH level approximately 62%. Neither of these conditions seemed to have any effect on the GSH red-ox status.