Molecular Adaptations for Survival during Anoxia: Lessons from Lower Vertebrates

Abstract

Anoxia-tolerant neurons from several species of animals may offer unparalleled opportunities to identify strategies that might be employed to enhance the hypoxia or ischemia tolerance of vulnerable neurons. In this review, the authors describe how the response of hypoxia-tolerant neurons to limited oxygen supply involves a suite of mechanisms that reduce energy expenditure in concert with decreased energy availability. This response avoids energy depletion, excitotoxic neuronal death, and apoptosis. Suppression of ion channel functions, particularly those of the ionotropic glutamate receptors, is a response common in hypoxia-tolerant neurons. The depression of excitability thereby achieved is essential given that the fundamental response to oxygen lack in anoxia-tolerant cells is a throttling down of metabolism to “pilot-light” levels. Many different types of processes have been found to down-regulate ion channel function. These include phosphorylation control, interactions with intracellular and extracellular ions, removal of active receptors from the neurolemma, and the direct sensing of oxygen by Na⁺ and K⁺ channels. Changes in [Ca²⁺]_i may initiate a protective down-regulation of many different pumps or channels. Transcriptional events leading to differential and/or decreased expression of receptors, proteins, and their subunits are probably very important but little studied.