Effects on the rabbit carotid body of stimulation by almitrine, natural high altitude, and experimental normobaric hypoxia

Rabbits were given intraperitoneal injections of almitrine in ascending doses for 5 weeks. They were compared with a control group and with a group of rabbits which had been exposed from birth to the natural hypobaric hypoxia found at Cerro de Pasco (4330 m) in the Peruvian Andes. A further group of animals was placed in an experimental normobaric chamber for either 3 or 6 months to subject them to the same degree of hypoxia as that occurring in Cerro. The carotid bodies of the rabbits in all these groups were processed for light and electron microscopy, and examined both qualitatively and quantitatively. The carotid bodies in the group given almitrine showed no changes in their size or in the population of their glomic cells when compared with controls. In contrast, the carotid bodies of Peruvian rabbits were greatly enlarged with a disproportionate increase in the population of the light variant of chief cell. Rabbits from the hypoxic chamber also had enlarged carotid bodies but those killed after 3 months showed an increase in the dark variant of chief cell, whereas after 6 months this cell was reduced in number. There was also intense cytoplasmic vacuolation. Electron microscopy confirmed these changes and revealed that dark cells had larger, more pleomorphic granules than the light variant. Vacuolation of the granules in light cells was most pronounced in Peruvian rabbits, but was uncommon in animals exposed to hypoxia for 3 months. We suggest that the dark cell responds to the early stages of hypoxia but later matures into the light variant of chief cell.