Hypoxia enhances cellular proliferation and inositol 1,4, 5-triphosphate generation in fibroblasts from bovine pulmonary artery but not from mesenteric artery.

When pulmonary hypertension occurs in the face of hypoxia there is remodeling of all three layers of the pulmonary vessels, but in particular, there is an increase in number of adventitial fibroblasts. Hypoxia causes vasoconstriction in the pulmonary circulation and vasodilation in the systemic circulation. We hypothesized that there are fundamental differences in oxygen sensing and cell signaling between systemic and pulmonary artery cells in response to hypoxia. Here, we determined the effect of hypoxia either alone or in combination with known growth factors such as serum, endothelin-1 (ET-1), and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) on the proliferative responses of bovine pulmonary artery and mesenteric artery fibroblasts. Fibroblasts were obtained from primary cultures. Growth was assessed by [3H]thymidine incorporation. Inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate (IP3) generation was measured using a competitive binding assay. Hypoxia alone increased proliferation of pulmonary artery fibroblasts (611 +/- 24%), but not in those from the mesentery. Furthermore, hypoxia had the effect of increasing the replicative response of pulmonary fibroblasts to serum and PDGF, but no change was observed in the mesenteric cells. ET-1 had no effect on growth of either cell type. PDGF gave rise to a significant elevation in IP3 production under hypoxic conditions in the pulmonary artery cells (234%), but not in the mesenteric cells. ET-1 caused no change in IP3 production in any cell type. These data suggest that hypoxia sensitizes pulmonary artery fibroblasts to the proliferative effect of mitogens through a pathway that is not present, or is present but repressed, in the mesenteric cells.