Department of Aging Control Medicine, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2012 Jan 6;417(1):104-8. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2011.11.064. Epub 2011 Nov 22.
Alpinists who challenge Mt. Everest need adaptation to hypoxia before the attack of Mt. Everest. Although this adaptation is important for the success of climbing Mt. Everest, the molecular mechanism on the adaptation to hypoxia is not well understood. In order to clarify this mechanism, we investigated hypoxia-induced gene expressions specific for top alpinists using microarray analyses. We report here that heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is significantly higher in the blood of top alpinist compared with non-alpinists. Although HO-1 expression of non-alpinists is also up-regulated in response to hypoxia, HO-1 level of the top alpinists are constitutively higher than that of non-alpinists. Serial examinations of HO-1 in one top alpinist revealed that the higher expression of HO-1 is maintained in high-level several months after the attack of top mountains. Taken together with the biochemical function of HO-1 that catalyzes heme into CO and bilirubin, HO-1 expression may improve the circulation and compensate with oxidative tissue damages induced by hypoxia. These data also suggest that peripheral blood has the memory on hypoxia independent of antigens by maintaining the high-level of HO-1 expression in top alpinists, which merits the rapid adaptation to hypoxia for 8000m climbing.
攀登珠穆朗玛峰的登山运动员在向珠峰发起冲击之前需要适应缺氧环境。尽管这种适应对攀登珠峰的成功很重要，但对于适应缺氧的分子机制还不是很清楚。为了阐明这一机制，我们使用微阵列分析调查了高空登山运动员特有的缺氧诱导基因表达。我们在这里报告，与非登山运动员相比，高空登山运动员的血液中血红素加氧酶-1（HO-1）明显更高。尽管非登山运动员的 HO-1 表达也会因缺氧而上调，但高空登山运动员的 HO-1 水平始终高于非登山运动员。对一名高空登山运动员的 HO-1 进行的连续检查表明，在登顶高峰数月后，HO-1 的高表达仍能维持。HO-1 的生化功能是将血红素催化成 CO 和胆红素，与这一结果结合起来，HO-1 的表达可能会改善血液循环，并补偿缺氧引起的氧化组织损伤。这些数据还表明，外周血具有对缺氧的记忆，而与抗原无关，通过在高空登山运动员中维持高水平的 HO-1 表达，这有助于快速适应 8000 米的攀登。
