Universidade Estadual Paulista - UNESP, Instituto de Biologia, Letras e Ciências Exatas, Laboratório de Hemoglobinas e Genética das Doenças Hematológicas, Departamento de Biologia, São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brasil.
Fundação Parque Tecnológico Itaipu (PTI), Foz do Iguaçu, PR, Brasil.
Braz J Biol. 2021 Oct 29;84:e249617. doi: 10.1590/1519-6984.249617. eCollection 2021.
Hibernation is a natural condition of animals that lives in the temperate zone, although some tropical lizards also experience hibernation annually, such as the lizard native from South America, Salvator merianae, or "tegu" lizard. Even though physiological and metabolic characteristic associated with hibernation have been extensively studied, possible alterations in the red blood cells (RBC) integrity during this period remains unclear. Dehydration and fasting are natural consequences of hibernating for several months and it could be related to some cellular modifications. In this study, we investigated if the osmotic tolerance of RBCs of tegu lizard under hibernation is different from the cells obtained from animals while normal activity. Additionally, we indirectly investigated if the RBCs membrane of hibernating tegus could be associated with oxidation by quantifying oxidized biomolecules and the activity of antioxidant enzymes. Our findings suggest that RBCs are more fragile during the hibernation period, although we did not find evidence of an oxidative stress scenario associated with the accentuated fragility. Even though we did not exclude the possibility of oxidative damage during hibernation, we suggested that an increased RBCs volume as a consequence of hypoosmotic blood during hibernation could also affect RBCs integrity as noted.
冬眠是生活在温带地区的动物的一种自然状态，尽管一些热带蜥蜴也每年经历冬眠，如原产于南美的蜥蜴，萨尔瓦多蜥蜴，或“鬣蜥”。尽管与冬眠相关的生理和代谢特征已经得到了广泛的研究，但在此期间红细胞（RBC）完整性可能发生的变化仍不清楚。脱水和禁食是冬眠数月的自然结果，这可能与一些细胞的改变有关。在这项研究中，我们研究了冬眠状态下鬣蜥 RBC 的渗透耐受性是否与正常活动时从动物身上获得的细胞不同。此外，我们通过定量氧化生物分子和抗氧化酶的活性，间接地研究了冬眠中鬣蜥 RBC 膜是否与氧化有关。我们的发现表明，尽管我们没有发现与明显脆弱性相关的氧化应激情况的证据，但在冬眠期间，RBC 更脆弱。尽管我们不排除冬眠期间发生氧化损伤的可能性，但我们认为，冬眠期间血液低渗导致 RBC 体积增加，也可能影响 RBC 的完整性。
