TRPC6 Deficiency Impairs Middle Cerebral Artery Myogenic Response and Brain Spatial Memory

Transient receptor potential channel 6 (TRPC6) is a nonselective cation channel belonging to the TRP ion channel family and expressed in vascular smooth muscle cells. TRPC6 regulates calcium influx in response to vascular wall mechanical stretch. A previous study reported that TRPC6 is critical for the myogenic response of the middle cerebral artery (MCA). Impaired MCA myogenic response is implicated in cerebral blood flow dysfunction and may promote cognitive deficits. In this study, we investigated whether TRPC6 contributes to the MCA myogenic response at pressure range (from 40 to 180 mmHg) in 12-week-old male wild-type (WT) and whole-body TRPC6 knock-out (TRPC6 KO) mice (n=5-8). Cognitive function (spatial learning and reference memory) was examined at 22 weeks of age using the Morris water maze test. Myogenic response in MCA was similar in WT and TRPC6 KO mice when perfusion pressure was increased from 40 to 80 mmHg. At higher pressures (>120 mmHg), however, TRPC6 KO mice displayed significantly reduced myogenic response compared to WT mice (3 % less of myogenic tone in TRPC6 KO compared to WT) which was further exacerbated when perfusion pressure was increased to 180 mmHg (9 % less of myogenic tone in TRPC6 KO compared to WT). There were no significant differences in wall thickness, wall-to-lumen ratio, vascular distensibility, incremental distensibility, or elastic modulus curves in MCA between WT and TRPC6 KO mice. Compared to WT mice, TRPC6 KO mice displayed similar spatial learning curves after 4 days of training but showed significantly impaired reference memory (14±1 % vs 29±4 % in the target quadrant) and reduced frequency (1.0±0.3 vs 2.1±0.4 in the target area crossing) compared to WT. These findings suggest that TRPC6 deficiency impairs myogenic response at higher perfusion pressures and spatial memory, even at a young age. (AG050049 (F.F), AG057842 (F.F), AG079336 (F.F), NIDDK R00DK113280, R01DK121411, NIGMS P20GM104357 and NIGMS U54GM115428) This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.