Adiponectin-deficient Mice Demonstrate Impaired Coronary Arteriolar Vasodilation and Subsequent Decline in Cardiac Function

Circulating adiponectin levels have been shown to correlate with microvascular coronary function, suggesting a cardioprotective effect. Our previous work has shown that adiponectin deficiency decreases coronary smooth muscle contractile function and physiological cardiac hypertrophy that is not reversed with exercise training. However, it is unknown if adiponectin deficiency adversely affects endothelial-dependent coronary vasodilation, leading to cardiac abnormalities. We tested the hypotheses that adiponectin is necessary for acetylcholine (ACh) and flow-induced vasodilation in coronary arterioles. It was also hypothesized that exercise training would improve cardiac function in exercise trained wild-type, but not adiponectin knock-out (AdipoKO) mice. Methods C57BL/6 wild-type (WT) or homozygous AdipoKO mice were obtained at 10 weeks of age and underwent treadmill exercise (12 m/min, 5° incline, 1 hour/day, 5 days/week for 8 weeks) or remained sedentary in cages. At the end of the training/sedentary per...