Nicotine Improves Survivability, Hypotension, and Impaired Adenosinergic Renal Vasodilations in Endotoxic Rats: Role of α7-nAChRs/HO-1 Pathway

ABSTRACT The nicotinic/cholinergic antiinflammatory pathway protects against acute kidney injury and other end-organ damages induced by endotoxemia. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that functional α7-nAChRs/heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) pathway is imperative for the nicotine counteraction of hemodynamic and renovascular dysfunction caused by acute endotoxemia in rats. Renal vasodilations were induced by cumulative bolus injections of acetylcholine (ACh, 0.01 nmol–7.29 nmol) or ethylcarboxamidoadenosine (NECA, adenosine receptor agonist, 1.6 nmol–100 nmol) in isolated phenylephrine-preconstricted perfused kidneys. The data showed that 6-h treatment with lipopolysaccharide (LPS, 5 mg/kg i.p.) decreased systolic blood pressure and renal vasodilations caused by NECA but not Ach. The endotoxic insult also increased the mortality rate and elevated serum urea and creatinine. These LPS effects were sex-unrelated, except hypotension, and enhanced mortality which were more evident in male rodents, and abrogated after co-administration of nicotine (0.5, 1 mg/kg and 2 mg/kg) in a dose-dependent fashion. The advantageous effects of nicotine on NECA vasodilations, survivability, and kidney biomarkers in endotoxic male rats disappeared upon concurrent exposure to methyllycaconitine citrate (α7-nAChR blocker) or zinc protoporphyrin (HO-1 inhibitor) and were reproduced after treatment with bilirubin, but not hemin (HO-1 inducer) or tricarbonyldichlororuthenium (II) dimer (carbon monoxide-releasing molecule). Together, current biochemical and pharmacological evidence suggests key roles for α7-nAChRs and the bilirubin byproduct of the HO-1 signaling in the nicotine counteraction of renal dysfunction and reduced adenosinergic renal vasodilator capacity in endotoxic rats.