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Adaptation of active tone in the mouse descending thoracic aorta under acute changes in loading

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Abstract

Arteries can adapt to sustained changes in blood pressure and flow, and it is thought that these adaptive processes often begin with an altered smooth muscle cell activity that precedes any detectable changes in the passive wall components. Yet, due to the intrinsic coupling between the active and passive properties of the arterial wall, it has been difficult to delineate the adaptive contributions of active smooth muscle. To address this need, we used a novel experimental–computational approach to quantify adaptive functions of active smooth muscle in arterial rings excised from the proximal descending thoracic aorta of mice and subjected to short-term sustained circumferential stretches while stimulated with various agonists. A new mathematical model of the adaptive processes was derived and fit to data to describe and predict the effects of active tone adaptation. It was found that active tone was maintained when the artery was adapted close to the optimal stretch for maximal active force production, but it was reduced when adapted below the optimal stretch; there was no significant change in passive behavior in either case. Such active adaptations occurred only upon smooth muscle stimulation with phenylephrine, however, not stimulation with KCl or angiotensin II. Numerical simulations using the proposed model suggested further that active tone adaptation in vascular smooth muscle could play a stabilizing role for wall stress in large elastic arteries.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported, in part, by a Grant (#2012419) from the ‘Swedish Research Council’ and grants from the US NIH (HL105297 and EB016810).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    S.-I. Murtada & J. D. Humphrey

  2. Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, von Eulers vag 8, 171 77, Stockholm, Sweden

    S.-I. Murtada & A. Arner

  3. Department of Solid Mechanics, The Royal Institute of Technology KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

    S. Lewin

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  1. S.-I. Murtada
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  2. S. Lewin
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  3. A. Arner
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  4. J. D. Humphrey
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Correspondence to S.-I. Murtada.

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Murtada, SI., Lewin, S., Arner, A. et al. Adaptation of active tone in the mouse descending thoracic aorta under acute changes in loading. Biomech Model Mechanobiol 15, 579–592 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10237-015-0711-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10237-015-0711-z

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