Anti-hypotensive treatment and endothelin blockade synergistically antagonize exercise fatigue in rats under simulated high altitude

PLoS One. 2014 Jun 24;9(6):e99309. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099309. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Rapid ascent to high altitude causes illness and fatigue, and there is a demand for effective acute treatments to alleviate such effects. We hypothesized that increased oxygen delivery to the tissue using a combination of a hypertensive agent and an endothelin receptor A antagonist drugs would limit exercise-induced fatigue at simulated high altitude. Our data showed that the combination of 0.1 mg/kg ambrisentan with either 20 mg/kg ephedrine or 10 mg/kg methylphenidate significantly improved exercise duration in rats at simulated altitude of 4,267 m, whereas the individual compounds did not. In normoxic, anesthetized rats, ephedrine alone and in combination with ambrisentan increased heart rate, peripheral blood flow, carotid and pulmonary arterial pressures, breathing rate, and vastus lateralis muscle oxygenation, but under inspired hypoxia, only the combination treatment significantly enhanced muscle oxygenation. Our results suggest that sympathomimetic agents combined with endothelin-A receptor blockers offset altitude-induced fatigue in rats by synergistically increasing the delivery rate of oxygen to hypoxic muscle by concomitantly augmenting perfusion pressure and improving capillary conductance in the skeletal muscle. Our findings might therefore serve as a basis to develop an effective treatment to prevent high-altitude illness and fatigue in humans.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Acclimatization
  • Altitude
  • Altitude Sickness / drug therapy*
  • Altitude Sickness / physiopathology
  • Animals
  • Cell Hypoxia / drug effects
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
  • Drug Synergism
  • Drug Therapy, Combination
  • Endothelin A Receptor Antagonists / administration & dosage*
  • Ephedrine / administration & dosage*
  • Fatigue / drug therapy*
  • Fatigue / physiopathology
  • Injections, Intraperitoneal
  • Methylphenidate / administration & dosage*
  • Phenylpropionates / administration & dosage*
  • Pyridazines / administration & dosage*
  • Rats
  • Sympathomimetics / administration & dosage*

Substances

  • Endothelin A Receptor Antagonists
  • Phenylpropionates
  • Pyridazines
  • Sympathomimetics
  • Methylphenidate
  • Ephedrine
  • ambrisentan

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Prime Award Number N66001-10-C-2134. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.