HYPOXIC REMODELING OF THE RAT PULMONARY ARTERIAL MICROCIRCULATION ASSESSED BY MICRODISSECTION

Artery segments were microdissected from distal acini of the rat lung and studied by light and electron microscopy. Morphometric methods were used to quantify the structure of the wall at defined levels within the normal axial pathway and to determine the changes after 5 and 7 days of whole-animal exposure to hypobaric hypoxia at an inspiratory O2 fraction of 0.1. In the normal lung, at the level of the terminal bronchiolus, the artery wall comprised up to six layers of smooth muscle cells (SMCs). At the respiratory bronchiolar level, however, the wall contained fewer than two layers of SMCs with a consistently circumferential orientation. By the second-generation alveolar ducts (AD2), the medial layer was lost, replaced by subendothelial precursor smooth muscle cells (PCs) resembling intermediate cells. At this end the next level (AD3), the PC layer was often circumferentially discontinuous. Regression analysis of the morphometric data suggested, however, that the smallest AD3 artery is likely to have a layer of PCs but with virtually no measurable separation between them and the endothelium. The mean maximum radial diameter of SMCs decreased along the axial pathway with a significant difference between diameters at terminal bronchiolus and AD2 levels; yet the diameter of endothelial cells remained the same. After 7 days of hypoxia, no change was noted in the number of smooth muscle layers, but at the AD2 level the relative area of media in the total wall increased. This was due in part to hypertrophy of PCs, as evidenced by an increase in their mean maximum radial diameter. Thus the normal downward gradient in smooth muscle diameter along the pathway was no longer evident. These results emphasize the special nature of the precapillary segments that begin at the AD2 level and are characterized by lining PCs. In hypoxia, these cells exhibit a hypertrophic response in the absence of change in adjacent endothelial cells or in SMCs situated proximally.