Serum, interstitial and sweat ATP in humans exposed to heat stress: Insights into roles of ATP in the heat loss responses

Hyperthermia increases intravascular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and is associated with greater hyperthermia-induced cutaneous vasodilation. Hyperthermia may also increase skin interstitial fluid ATP thereby activating cutaneous vascular smooth muscle cells and sweat glands. We evaluated the hypothesis that whole-body heating would increase skin interstitial fluid ATP, and this response would be associated with an increase in cutaneous vasodilation and sweating. Nineteen (8 females) young adults underwent whole-body heating using a water-perfusion suit to increase core temperature by similar to 1 degrees C during which time cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC, ratio of laser-Doppler blood flow to mean arterial pressure) and sweat rate (ventilated capsule technique) were measured at four forearm skin sites to minimize between-site variations. Dialysate from the skin sites were collected via intradermal microdialysis. Heating increased serum ATP, CVC, and sweat rate (all p <= 0.031). However, heating did not modulate dialysate ATP (median, baseline vs. end-heating: 2.38 vs. 2.70 nmol/ml) (p = 0.068), though the effect size was moderate (Cohen's d = 0.566). While the heating-induced increase in CVC was not correlated with changes in serum ATP (r = 0.439, p = 0.060), we observed a negative correlation (r(s) = -0.555, p = 0.017) between dialysate ATP and CVC. We did not observe a significant correlation between the heating-induced sweating and serum, dialysate, or sweat ATP (r(s) = 0.091 to -0.322, all p >= 0.222). Altogether, we showed that passive heating increases ATP in blood and possibly skin interstitial fluid, with the latter potentially blunting cutaneous vasodilation. However, ATP does not appear to modulate sweating.