Treatment of newborn rats with a VEGF receptor inhibitor causes pulmonary hypertension and abnormal lung structure

To determine whether disruption of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-VEGF receptor (VEGFR) signaling in the newborn has long-term effects on lung structure and function, we injected 1-day-old newborn rat pups with a single dose of Su-5416, a VEGFR inhibitor, or vehicle (controls). Lungs from infant (3-wk-old) and adult (3- to 4-mo-old) rats treated with Su-5416 as newborns showed reductions in arterial density (82 and 31%, respectively) and alveolar counts (45 and 29%) compared with controls. Neonatal treatment with Su-5416 increased right ventricle weight to body wt ratios (4.2-fold and 2.0-fold) and pulmonary arterial wall thickness measurements (2.7-fold and 1.6-fold) in infant and adult rats, respectively, indicating marked pulmonary hypertension. We conclude that treatment of newborn rats with the VEGFR inhibitor Su-5416 impaired pulmonary vascular growth and postnatal alveolarization and caused pulmonary hypertension and that these effects were long term, persisting well into adulthood.