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Stress-related arterial hypertension in Gper-deficient rats

Luo Ping¹, WU Mei-Mei¹, GAO Po¹, GAO Ting¹, DONG Li¹, DING Xiao-Wei¹, MENG You-Qiang¹, QIAN Jia-Hong¹, ZHANG Guo-Hua¹, RONG Wei-Fang^1,2,*

¹Hongqiao International Institute of Medical Research, Tongren Hospital and Department of Physiology, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China；²Key Laboratory of Cerebrocranial Diseases, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, China

Abstract

Numerous studies have demonstrated that estrogens may exert multifaceted effects on the cardiovascular system via activating the classical nuclear receptors ERα or ERβ and the novel G protein coupled estrogen receptor (Gper). However, some studies have reported inconsistent cardiovascular phenotypes in Gper-deficient mice. The current study was aimed to reveal the effects of genetic deletion of Gper on the arterial blood pressure (ABP) and heart rate in rats. Gper-deficient Sprague-Dawley rats were generated by utilizing the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique. ABP of 10-week old male (n = 6) and 12-week old female (n = 6) Gper- deficient rats and age-matched wild type (WT) rats (6 females and 6 males) were measured under awake and restrained conditions through the non-invasive tail-cuff method daily for 8 (females) or 9 days (males). In the male WT rats, ABP and heart rate were slightly higher in day 1 to 4 than those in day 5 to 9, indicative of stress-related sympathoexcitation in the first few days and gradual adaptation to the restrained stress in later days. Gper-deficient rats had significantly higher ABP initially (male: day 1 to day 5; female: day 1 to day 3) and similar ABP in later days of measurement compared with the WT rats. The heart rate of male Gper-deficient rats was consistently higher than that of the male WT rats from day 1 to day 8. Both male and female Gper-deficient rats appeared to show slower body weight gain than the WT counterparts during the study period. Under anesthesia, ABP of Gper-deficient rats was not significantly different from their WT counterparts. These results indicate that Gper-deficient rats may be more sensitive to stress-induced sympathoexcitation and highlight the importance of Gper in the regulation of the cardiovascular function in stressful conditions.

Key words: estrogens; G protein coupled estrogen receptor (Gper) ; stress ; hypertension ; sympathetic nervous system

Received: 2017-05-18　　Accepted: 2017-06-13

Corresponding author: 戎伟芳　　E-mail: weifangrong@shsmu.edu.cn

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2017.0047

Citing This Article：

Luo Ping, WU Mei-Mei, GAO Po, GAO Ting, DONG Li, DING Xiao-Wei, MENG You-Qiang, QIAN Jia-Hong, ZHANG Guo-Hua, RONG Wei-Fang. Stress-related arterial hypertension in Gper-deficient rats. Acta Physiol Sin 2017; 69 (5): 532-540