Heat acclimation in rats: modulation via lipid polyunsaturation.

Heat acclimation of rats has been shown to enhance endurance of rat hearts to ischemic insult and acute heat stress. Common protective features have been shown to be operative during both these stress-inducing conditions. To explore the role of membrane lipid composition in the adaptive response, we analyzed two major parameters that impact membrane dynamics and order, the nonesterified cholesterol levels and the acyl chain composition of phospholipids, in rat heart and salivary glands, both major thermoregulatory organs, in short- and long-term heat-acclimated rats. Before exposure to heat, control salivary gland tissue has a higher cholesterol-to-phospholipid mole ratio (0.32 +/- 0.02) than heart (0.14 +/- 0.01), and the acyl chains of its phospholipids are 50% more saturated. The remodeling strategies of the tissues after exposure to heat differed. Heart cholesterol levels increased after short-term heat acclimation (approximately 50%), whereas salivary gland cholesterol levels decreased in acute heat stress and long-term heat acclimation (approximately 32%). Remodeling of phospholipid acyl chains, particularly an increase in docosahexaenoic acid, was a protective strategy in both tissues (57% in heart and >100% in salivary glands). Modifying membrane lipid composition by treating rats with liposomes composed of egg phosphatidylcholine (PC) before exposure to heat resulted in a 38% increase in endurance to thermal stress. The density and affinity of muscarinic receptors of submaxillary salivary glands, involved in the acclimation response, were measured in control and PC liposome-treated rats, and then both groups were subjected to short-term heat acclimation. After PC treatment the well-established compensatory upregulation of the muscarinic receptors and concomitant decrease in their affinity was blunted. The substantial increase in the thermal endurance of heat-challenged intact rats after treatment with PC liposomes (600 vs. 200 min) suggests that membrane lipid composition plays a role in the ability of these tissues to respond to heat stress.