Abstract
Desert rodents are faced with many challenges such as high dietary salt in their natural habitats and they have evolved abilities to conserve water and tolerate salt. However, the physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in water and salt balances in desert rodents are unknown. We hypothesized that desert rodents regulated water and salt balances by altering the expression of AQP2 and α-ENaC in the kidney. Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus), a desert species, were acclimated to drinking water with different salt contents: (0, control; 4% NaCl, moderate salt, MS; 8% NaCl, high salt, HS) for 4 weeks. The gerbils drinking salty water had lower body mass, food intake, water intake, metabolic water production and urine volume. The HS gerbils increased the expression of arginine vasopressin (AVP) in the hypothalamus, and also enhanced the expression of AQP2 and cAMP/PKA/CREB signaling pathway in the kidney. In addition, these gerbils reduced serum aldosterone levels and α-ENaC expression in the kidney. Creatinine clearance was lower in the HS group than that in the control group, but serum and urine creatinine levels did not change. These data indicate that desert rodents rely on AVP-dependent upregulation of AQP2 and aldosterone-dependent downregulation of α-ENaC in the kidney to promote water reabsorption and sodium excretion under high salt intake.
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Abbreviations
- AQP2:
-
Aquaporin 2
- AVP:
-
Arginine vasopressin
- CREB:
-
cAMP-responsive element CRE-binding protein
- ENaC:
-
Epithelial sodium channel
- EWL:
-
Evaporative water loss
- HS:
-
High-salt group
- MR:
-
Mineralocorticoid receptors
- MS:
-
Moderate-salt group
- PKA:
-
Protein kinase A
- PVN:
-
Paraventricular nucleus
- RMR:
-
Resting metabolic rate
- RMT:
-
Relative medullary thickness
- RU:
-
Relative units
- SON:
-
Superoptic nucleus
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Acknowledgements
We appreciate the valuable comments and suggestions by the anonymous reviewers, and especially thank Professor Allan Degen from Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, for his suggestions and careful editing. We also thank Shulei Lou, Yangyang Guo and Shaoyan Hao for their helps in this study. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31472006 and 31770440), and Z.N. was supported by CAS-TWAS Scholarship program for international students.
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XYZ and DHW conceived the study idea, secured funding, and designed the experiment; ZN conducted the experiment and analyzed the data; ZN and XYZ wrote the manuscript; all the authors contributed to revision of the manuscript.
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Nouri, Z., Zhang, XY. & Wang, DH. The physiological and molecular mechanisms to maintain water and salt homeostasis in response to high salt intake in Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus). J Comp Physiol B 190, 641–654 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-020-01287-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-020-01287-0