Endothelial HIF signaling regulates pulmonary fibrosis-associated pulmonary hypertension.
Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol
; 310(3): L249-62, 2016 Feb 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26637636
ABSTRACT
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) complicating chronic parenchymal lung disease, such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, results in significant morbidity and mortality. Since the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) signaling pathway is important for development of pulmonary hypertension in chronic hypoxia, we investigated whether HIF signaling in vascular endothelium regulates development of PH related to pulmonary fibrosis. We generated a transgenic model in which HIF is deleted within vascular endothelial cells and then exposed these mice to chronic intraperitoneal bleomycin to induce PH associated with lung fibrosis. Although no differences in the degree of fibrotic remodeling were observed, we found that endothelial HIF-deficient mice were protected against development of PH, including right ventricle and pulmonary vessel remodeling. Similarly, endothelial HIF-deficient mice were protected from PH after a 4-wk exposure to normobaric hypoxia. In vitro studies of pulmonary vascular endothelial cells isolated from the HIF-targeted mice and controls revealed that endothelial HIF signaling increases endothelial cell expression of connective tissue growth factor, enhances vascular permeability, and promotes pulmonary artery smooth muscle cell proliferation and wound healing ability, all of which have the potential to impact the development of PH in vivo. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that vascular endothelial cell HIF signaling is necessary for development of hypoxia and pulmonary fibrosis associated PH. As such, HIF and HIF-regulated targets represent a therapeutic target in these conditions.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pulmonary Artery
/
Endothelial Cells
/
Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1
/
Hypertension, Pulmonary
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR
/
FISIOLOGIA
Year:
2016
Document type:
Article