Abstract P335: Greater Reduction in Sympathetic Tone following ET B Receptor Blockade in Rats Lacking the Clock Gene Bmal1 during High Salt Diet

Abstract

The absence of diurnal oscillations in blood pressure is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The clock gene Bmal1 plays important roles in diurnal cardiovascular control as mice lacking Bmal1 have lower blood pressure and lack a diurnal rhythm. Our lab has previously reported a global Bmal1 knockout rat model that lacks a night-day difference in sodium excretion. Due to the importance of endothelin signaling in sodium homeostasis and autonomic tone, we sought to characterize the hemodynamic and autonomic responses of our Bmal1 knockout (KO) rat to high salt diet and endothelin receptor blockade. Male rats homozygous for the Bmal1 mutation (KO, n = 4) and wild type (WT, n = 7) littermate controls were implanted with telemetry transmitters to record blood pressure. After a recovery period of at least one week, the rats were placed on 7 days each of normal salt (0.49% NaCl) diet, high salt (4.0% NaCl) diet, followed by high salt diet containing the specific ET B receptor antagonist A192621 (10 mg/kg/day, p.o.). Rats were placed in metabolic cages for the last three days of each diet. Surprisingly, KO rats had a similar night-day difference in mean arterial pressure (MAP) as WT during normal salt diet (6.3 ± 0.4 vs. 6.9 ± 0.9 mmHg; respectively), high salt diet (7.1 ± 0.1 vs. 5.4 ± 0.9 mmHg; respectively), and high salt + A192621 (5.4 ± 0.4 vs. 4.8 ± 1.1 mmHg; respectively). KO and WT rats had similar 24-hr MAP during normal salt diet (104.1 ± 3.3 vs. 107.3 ± 1.2 mmHg; respectively), high salt diet (113.8 ± 4.1 vs. 114.0 ± 1.4 mmHg; respectively), and high salt + A192621 (136.3 ± 8.6 vs. 133.4 ± 3.1 mmHg; respectively). Despite these similar blood pressure responses to high salt diet and ET B antagonism, KO rats had a significantly greater reduction in vasomotor sympathetic to parasympathetic tone compared to WT rats as demonstrated by low frequency to high frequency (LF/HF) analysis of diastolic blood pressure variability (-0.9 ± 0.3 vs. 0.1 ± 0.2 ΔLF/HF relative to normal salt; respectively; p = 0.01). These results indicate that lack of Bmal1 may result in greater ET B receptor mediated vasomotor sympathetic tone in rats fed a high salt diet and that factors other than Bmal1 may be influential in circadian control of blood pressure in rats.