ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Vascular Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1602155
Blood Pressure is Elevated in the Absence of Resistance Artery Dysfunction in a Mouse Model of Diet-Induced Obesity
Provisionally accepted- 1Physiology Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 2Ted Rogers Centre For Heart Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 3Qanatpharma Ltd, Toronto, Canada
- 4Toronto General Research Institute (TGRI), Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 5Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 6Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 7Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, California, United States
- 8Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 9Aphaia Pharma AG, Zug, Switzerland
- 10Qanatpharma AG, Stans, Switzerland
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Hypertension and impaired tissue perfusion are frequent comorbidities in obesity. Since resistance arteries are the primary regulators of peripheral resistance and hence, systemic blood pressure and local blood flow control, we hypothesized that resistance arteries isolated from obese mice would display augmented myogenic reactivity and altered vasomotor responses, compared to non-obese controls.Eight-week-old C57BL/6J mice were fed either a high-fat diet (60% calories from fat; HFD) or a matched control diet for 16 weeks. Body weight, fasting blood glucose, oral glucose tolerance and insulin tolerance were measured. In parallel studies, we measured mean arterial pressure, conducted echocardiographic measurements of cardiac morphology and function and assessed skeletal muscle, mesenteric and cerebral resistance artery reactivity ex vivo with pressure myography. HFD mice exhibited substantial weight gain and metabolic dysfunction compared to controls. Left ventricular wall thickness and mass were increased in HFD mice, but no other morphological or functional cardiac parameters were different from controls. Blood pressure was modestly increased in HFD mice (from 81 to 87 mmHg; measured under anesthesia); however, contrary to our hypothesis, resistance arteries from HFD mice showed no overt microvascular phenotype in any microvascular bed tested (i.e., no differences in passive diameter, myogenic reactivity or vasomotor responses to phenylephrine or acetylcholine). We conclude that resistance artery function is preserved in this diet-induced model of obesity with metabolic dysfunction.
Keywords: Obesity, Insulin Resistance, Myogenic activity, Resistance arteries, Echocardiography, Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), Hypertension, vascular reactivity
Received: 28 Mar 2025; Accepted: 14 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lidington, Dinh, Chen, Zhang, Zhou, Heximer, Winer, Martchenko and Bolz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Steffen-Sebastian Bolz, Physiology Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 1A8, Ontario, Canada
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