Systemic arterial hypertension has been previously suggested to develop as a compensatory condition when central nervous perfusion/oxygenation is compromised. Principal sympathoexcitatory C1 neurons of the rostral ventrolateral medulla oblongata (whose activation increases sympathetic drive and the arterial blood pressure) are highly sensitive to hypoxia, but the mechanisms of this O2 sensitivi...

Vascular hypoxia sensing is transduced into vasoconstriction in the pulmonary circulation, whereas systemic arteries dilate. Mitochondrial electron transport chain (mETC), reactive O(2) species (ROS), and K(+) channels have been implicated in the sensing/signaling mechanisms of hypoxic relaxation in mammalian systemic arteries. We aimed to investigate their putative roles in hypoxia-induced rel...

Sleep-disordered breathing is associated with pulmonary hypertension and raised haematocrit. The multiple episodes of apnoea in this condition cause chronic intermittent hypoxia and hypercapnia but the effects of such blood gas changes on pulmonary pressure or haematocrit are unknown. The present investigation tests the hypothesis that chronic intermittent hypercapnic hypoxia causes increased p...

Therapeutic hypercapnia has the potential for neuroprotection after global cerebral ischemia. Here we further investigated the effects of different degrees of acute systemic hypoxia in combination with hypercapnia on brain damage in a rat model of hypoxia and ischemia. Adult wistar rats underwent unilateral common carotid artery (CCA) ligation for 60 min followed by ventilation with normoxic or...

Hypoxia triggers pulmonary vasoconstriction, however induces relaxation of systemic arteries such as femoral arteries. Mitochondria are functionally and structurally heterogeneous between different cell types. The aim of this study was to reveal whether mitochondrial heterogeneity controls the distinct responses of pulmonary versus systemic artery smooth muscle cells to hypoxia. Intact mitochon...

Introduction: Beat-to-beat variation in heart rate shows a complex dynamics, and this complexity is changed during systemic inflammatory response syndrome (e.g. sepsis). It is not known whether or not cardiac pacemaker dynamical rhythm is affected by sepsis. The aim of this study was to investigate heart rate dynamics of isolated heart as well as expression of pacemaker channels (HCN) in a r...

Hypoxia-inducing transcription factor-1α (HIF-1α) in hypoxic tumors induces the TNF receptor family member CD137 on tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. This can be exploited for intratumoral low-dose injection of effective systemic immunotherapy with agonist CD137-specific monoclonal antibodies that induce circulation of systemic tumor-specific effector T cells capable of eradicating distant metast...