Ultrastructural analysis of contractile cell development in lung microvessels in hyperoxic pulmonary hypertension. Fibroblasts and intermediate cells selectively reorganize nonmuscular segments.

The current study traces the development of contractile cells in the nonmuscular segments of rat lung microvessels in hyperoxic pulmonary hypertension. New intimal cells first develop into a well-defined layer beneath the endothelium and internal to an elastic lamina. Ultrastructurally, these cells are found to be 1) fibroblasts recruited to the vessel wall from the interstitium and 2) intermediate cells, a population of preexisting vascular cells (structurally between a smooth muscle cell and a pericyte). Early in hyperoxia (days 3 through 7), interstitial fibroblasts migrate and align around the smallest vessels in which an elastic lamina is either absent or fragmentary. These cells then are incorporated into the vessel wall by tropoelastin secretion and the formation of an elastic lamina along their abluminal margin. After day 7, the new mural fibroblasts acquire the features of contractile cells, namely a basal lamina, extensive microfilaments, and dense bodies. In other vessels, as early as day 3 of hyperoxia, intermediate cells within the vessel intima begin to acquire the additional filaments and dense bodies of contractile cells. As hyperoxia continues, each cell pathway gives rise to vessels with distinct intimal or medial layers of contractile cells. In this way, thick-walled 'newly muscularized' vessel segments form adjacent to the capillary bed.