LAUSR

Exercise intolerance is a clinical hallmark of patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and/or impaired diastolic function. Elevated LV filling pressures, particularly in response to acute exercise bouts, are thought to play a role limiting exercise capacity in ventricles with abnormal relaxation/compliance. However, it is experimentally difficult to obtain in vivo hemodynamic measures necessary for the evaluation of centrally mediated dysfunction. Leveraging radio-telemetry, we evaluated central hemodynamic parameters as mediators of exercise intolerance in obese ZSF1 rats with diabetes, hypertension, and diastolic dysfunction. Both ZSF1 (637+12g, n=8) and age-matched (28 weeks) healthy control (CTRL, 543+14g, n=4, P<0.05) rats were instrumented for telemetric left-ventricular pressure (LVP) recordings. Following surgical recovery rats were familiarized to treadmill running and subsequently challenged with an exercise protocol aimed at increasing heart rate by 200 beats/min (5° incline, 15 m/min, increased by 3 m/min every 2-min) until volitional exhaustion. LV pressures were collected continuously during cage resting, treadmill resting, and post-exercise until heart rate returned to baseline. Additionally, resting echocardiographic and blood glucose measures were collected. At rest, ZSF1 rats had preserved ejection fraction (73+6 vs 79+9%), elevated (P<0.05) blood glucose (237+83 vs 94+23 mg/dL), end-systolic (147+18 vs 103+13 mmHg), and end-diastolic pressures (16+3 vs 9+3 mmHg), with preserved indexed end-diastolic volumes (670+95 vs 741+89 μL/kg), suggesting impaired diastolic compliance. ZSF1 rats terminated exercise prematurely (8:26+1:20 vs 10:27+1:18 min, P<0.05), indicating a limitation in exercise capacity. This early volitional exhaustion was noted while end-diastolic pressures were not further increased (17+7 mmHg), suggesting that other pathological derangement may play a role modulating exercise capacity. For instance, ZSF1 rats tended to have a blunted increase in the systolic index dP/dt40 (+2589+1450 vs +3938+749 mmHg/s, P<0.1) despite achieving comparable increases in HR (193+34 vs 196+38 bpm) with exercise. This pilot study demonstrates the feasibility for evaluation of left-ventricular hemodynamics during exercise in rodents with diastolic dysfunction, establishing a platform to evaluate both the mechanisms of exercise intolerance as well as potential therapeutic approaches to rescue exercise capacity. MyoKardia