Divergent impact of gestational diabetes mellitus between the thoracic and abdominal rat aorta: Influence of endothelium and angiotensin II receptors.

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) affects 5-10% of pregnancies and increases the risk of fetal and maternal adverse outcomes. Interestingly, the vascular response to AngII is decreased by pregnancy while the response is increased by diabetes. It remains unclear how GDM affects vascular tone and how angiotensin II receptors contribute to these changes.

Experimental gestational diabetes mellitus induces blunted vasoconstriction and functional changes in the rat aorta.

Diabetic conditions increase vascular reactivity to angiotensin II in several studies but there are scarce reports on cardiovascular effects of hypercaloric diet (HD) induced gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), so the objective of this work was to determine the effects of HD induced GDM on vascular responses. Angiotensin II as well as phenylephrine induced vascular contraction was tested in isolated aorta rings with and without endothelium from rats fed for 7 weeks (4 before and 3 weeks during pregnancy) with standard (SD) or hypercaloric (HD) diet. Also, protein expression of AT1R, AT2R, COX-1, COX-2, NOS-1, and NOS-3 and plasma glucose, insulin, and angiotensin II levels were measured.