Role of endothelin in endotoxin-induced sustained pulmonary hypertension in sheep

BMS182874, an endothelin receptor antagonist, blocks the effects of exogenously administered endothelins in chronically instrumented awake sheep. A possible role for endothelin in endotoxin-induced pulmonary hypertension in sheep was investigated by studying animals given intravenous endotoxin with and without pretreatment with BMS182874. BMS182874 administration alone caused a reduction in pulmonary artery pressure (P-PA) and systemic arterial pressure (P-SA). Endotoxin alone caused an acute, nearly threefold increase in P-PA which was followed, from 2-5 h after endotoxin, by a sustained but less severe increase in P-PA. These changes were accompanied by a threefold increase in lung lymph flow and dramatic increases in plasma and lung lymph thromboxane B-2 concentrations. Pretreatment with BMS182874 significantly attenuated the early endotoxin-induced acute increase in P-PA and completely blocked the late sustained pulmonary hypertension (p < 0.05), while having no affect on the increases in thromboxane levels. BMS182874 shifts the dose response curve for U46619, a prostaglandin H-2 analogue, to the right. BMS182874, in addition to functioning as an endothelium receptor antagonist, appears to counteract the action of thromboxane at the receptor level. We theorize that BMS182874 attenuates the early endotoxin-induced pulmonary hypertension by counteracting the effects of thromboxane, since previous studies demonstrated that the early acute rise in P-PA is caused by thromboxane. The late sustained pulmonary hypertension of endotoxemia, on the other hand, appears to be mediated by endothelin.