[Dynamics of nucleic acid and protein concentration and synthesis during adaptation to hypoxia]

Adaptation of female Wistar rats to hypoxia was carried out in the altitude chamber (barochamber) for 40 days, 6 hours per day at the altitude of 7,000 meters. By the end of the adaptation the relative weight of the lungs increased by 37 per cent (this seeming to indicate hypertrophy of the lungs), and the concentration of RNA in the lung tissue increased by 30 per cent; at the same time the RNA concentration in the lungs as a whole increased by 85 per cent DNA concentration in the lung tissue showed no essential change, and its content in the lungs increased at the same rate as the lungs' weight. An increase in protein synthesis in the lungs determined by the S-35-methionine incorporation constituted 133% in the adapted rats in comparison with control.