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1 U676, INSERM, Paris, France
2 University of Picardie, Amiens, France
3 Service de Pediatrie-Reanimation, Hopital Robert Debre, Paris, France
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gallego{at}rdebre.inserm.fr.
Congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS) is a rare disease with variable severity, generally present from birth and chiefly characterized by impaired chemosensitivity to hypercapnia. The main cause of CCHS is a mutation in the PHOX2B gene, which encodes a transcription factor involved in the development of autonomic medullary reflex pathways. Temperature regulation is abnormal in many patients with CCHS. Here, we examined whether ambient temperature influenced CO2 sensitivity in a mouse model of CCHS. A weak response to CO2 at thermoneutrality (32°C) was noted previously in 2-day old mice with an invalidated Phox2b allele (Phox2b+/-), compared to wild-type littermates. We exposed Phox2b+/- pups to 8% CO2 at three ambient temperatures (TA): 29°C, 32°C, and 35°C. We measured breathing variables and heart rate (HR) noninvasively using a novel whole-body flow plethysmograph equipped with contact electrodes. Body temperature and baseline breathing increased similarly with TA in mutant and wild-type pups. The hypercapnic ventilatory response increased linearly with TA in both groups, while remaining smaller in mutant than in wild-type pups at all TAs. The difference between the absolute increases in ventilation in mutant and wild-type pups become more pronounced as temperature increased above 29°C. The ventilatory abnormalities in mutant pups were not associated with significant impairments of heart rate control. In both mutant and wild-type pups, baseline HR increased with TA. In conclusion, TA strongly influenced the hypercapnic ventilatory response in Phox2b+/- mutant mice. These findings suggest that abnormal temperature regulation may contribute to the severity of respiratory impairments in CCHS patients.
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