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Study of structural failure of the blood‐gas barrier and the epithelial‐epithelial cell contacts in rested and exercised chicken, Gallus domesticus
Author(s) -
Maina John N,
Jimoh Adekunle S
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.26.1_supplement.723.13
Subject(s) - chemistry , biology , anatomy , medicine
In birds, high pulmonary capillary blood pressure (PCBP) greatly challenges the structural integrity of the blood‐gas barrier (BGB). Among air‐breathing vertebrates, birds interestingly have thinnest BGBs. To reconcile presence of thin BGB with high PCBP, failure of the BGB and the epithelial‐epithelial cell contacts (E‐ECCs) in rested and exercised chickens was investigated. The number of red blood cells (nRBCs) and protein concentration (PC) were determined in the lavaged fluid. The numbers of E‐ECC breaks (nE‐ECCBs) and those of the BGB (nBGBBs) were counted in the regions supplied by the four branches of the pulmonary artery (PA). The blood lactate concentration increased 4‐fold between rest and highest level of treadmill exercise (speed 2.95 m/s) while the nRBCs and the PC increased gradually, tending to level at higher workloads. Indicating their relative fragility, the nE‐ECCBs surpassed the nBGBBs. In resting birds, there were no breaks in the cranial region. In exercised birds, differences in number of breaks only occurred at 0.66 m/s where the lowest and highest counts respectively occurred in the cranial‐ and caudomedial regions whereas at all other levels of exercise, the numbers of breaks were comparable. Funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF)