Cerebral Oxygenation in Awake Rats during Acclimation and Deacclimation to Hypoxia: An In Vivo Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Study

Dunn, J. F., N. Khan, H. G. Hou, J. Merlis, M. A. Abajian, E. Demidenko, O.Y. Grinberg, and H. M. Swartz. Cerebral oxygenation in awake rats during acclimation and deacclimation to hypoxia: an in vivo EPR study. High Alt. Med. Biol. 12:71–77, 2011.— Exposure to high altitude or hypobaric hypoxia results in a series of metabolic, physiologic, and genetic changes that serve to acclimate the brain to hypoxia. Tissue Po2 (Pto2) is a sensitive index of the balance between oxygen delivery and utilization and can be considered to represent the summation of such factors as cerebral blood flow, capillary density, hematocrit, arterial Po2, and metabolic rate. As such, it can be used as a marker of the extent of acclimation. We developed a method using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) to measure Pto2 in unanesthetized subjects with a chronically implanted sensor. EPR was used to measure rat cortical tissue Pto2 in awake rats during acute hypoxia and over a time course of acclimation and deacclimation to hypobaric hypoxia. This was done to simulate the effects on brain Pto2 of traveling to altitude for a limited period. Acute reduction of inspired O2 to 10% caused a decline from 26.7 ± 2.2 to 13.0 ± 1.5 mmHg (mean ± SD). Addition of 10% CO2 to animals breathing 10% O2 returned Pto2 to values measured while breathing 21% O2, indicating that hypercapnia can reverse the effects of acute hypoxia. Pto2 in animals acclimated to 10% O2 was similar to that measured preacclimation when breathing 21% O2. Using a novel, individualized statistical model, it was shown that the T1/2 of the Pto2 response during exposure to chronic hypoxia was approximately 2 days. This indicates a capacity for rapid adaptation to hypoxia. When subjects were returned to normoxia, there was a transient hyperoxygenation, followed by a return to lower values with a T1/2 of deacclimation of 1.5 to 3 days. These data indicate that exposure to hypoxia results in significant improvements in steady-state oxygenation for a given inspired O2 and that both acclimation and deacclimation can occur within days

ApoE4 markedly exacerbates tau-mediated neurodegeneration in a mouse model of tauopathy

APOE4 is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer disease. ApoE4 increases brain amyloid-β pathology relative to other ApoE isoforms. However, whether APOE independently influences tau pathology, the other major proteinopathy of Alzheimer disease and other tauopathies, or tau-mediated neurodegeneration, is not clear. By generating P301S tau transgenic mice on either a human ApoE knock-in (KI) or ApoE knockout (KO) background, here we show that P301S/E4 mice have significantly higher tau levels in the brain and a greater extent of somatodendritic tau redistribution by three months of age compared with P301S/E2, P301S/E3, and P301S/EKO mice. By nine months of age, P301S mice with different ApoE genotypes display distinct phosphorylated tau protein (p-tau) staining patterns. P301S/E4 mice develop markedly more brain atrophy and neuroinflammation than P301S/E2 and P301S/E3 mice, whereas P301S/EKO mice are largely protected from these changes. In vitro, E4-expressing microglia exhibit higher innate immune reactivity after lipopolysaccharide treatment. Co-culturing P301S tau-expressing neurons with E4-expressing mixed glia results in a significantly higher level of tumour-necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) secretion and markedly reduced neuronal viability compared with neuron/E2 and neuron/E3 co-cultures. Neurons co-cultured with EKO glia showed the greatest viability with the lowest level of secreted TNF-α. Treatment of P301S neurons with recombinant ApoE (E2, E3, E4) also leads to some neuronal damage and death compared with the absence of ApoE, with ApoE4 exacerbating the effect. In individuals with a sporadic primary tauopathy, the presence of an ε4 allele is associated with more severe regional neurodegeneration. In individuals who are positive for amyloid-β pathology with symptomatic Alzheimer disease who usually have tau pathology, ε4-carriers demonstrate greater rates of disease progression. Our results demonstrate that ApoE affects tau pathogenesis, neuroinflammation, and tau-mediated neurodegeneration independently of amyloid-β pathology. ApoE4 exerts a 'toxic' gain of function whereas the absence of ApoE is protective