Chronic hypoxia attenuates the vasodilator efficacy of protein kinase G in fetal and adult ovine cerebral arteries

Long-term hypoxia (LTH) attenuates nitric oxide-induced vasorelaxation in ovine middle cerebral arteries. Because cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG) is an important mediator of NO signaling in vascular smooth muscle, we tested the hypothesis that LTH diminishes the ability of PKG to interact with target proteins and cause vasorelaxation. Prominent among proteins that regulate vascular tone is the large-conductance Ca²⁺-sensitive K⁺ (BK) channel, which is a substrate for PKG and is responsive to phosphorylation on multiple serine/threonine residues. Given the influence of these proteins, we also examined whether LTH attenuates PKG and BK channel protein abundances and PKG activity. Middle cerebral arteries were harvested from normoxic and hypoxic (altitude of 3,820 m for 110 days) fetal and adult sheep. These arteries were denuded and equilibrated with 95% O₂-5% CO₂ in the presence of N-nitro-_L-arginine methyl ester (_L-NAME) to inhibit potential confounding influences of events upstream from PKG. Expression and activity of PKG-I were not significantly affected by chronic hypoxia in either fetal or adult arteries. Pretreatment with the BK inhibitor iberiotoxin attenuated vasorelaxation induced by 8-(4-chlorophenylthio)guanosine 3’,5’-cyclic monophosphate in normoxic but not LTH arteries. The spatial proximities of PKG with BK channel α- and β1-proteins were examined using confocal microscopy, which revealed a strong dissociation of PKG with these proteins after LTH. These results support our hypothesis that hypoxia reduces the ability of PKG to attenuate vasoconstriction in part through suppression of the ability of PKG to associate with and thereby activate BK channels in arterial smooth muscle. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Using measurements of contractility, protein abundance, kinase activity, and confocal colocalization in fetal and adult ovine cerebral arteries, the present study demonstrates that long-term hypoxia diminishes the ability of cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG) to cause vasorelaxation through suppression of its colocalization and interaction with large-conductance Ca²⁺-sensitive K⁺ (BK) channel proteins in cerebrovascular smooth muscle. These experiments are among the first to demonstrate hypoxic changes in BK subunit abundances in fetal cerebral arteries and also introduce the use of advanced methods of confocal colocalization to study interaction between PKG and its targets.