[The effect of hypoxia on oxidative phosphorylation and lipid peroxidation in rat liver mitochondria upon lung...

Hypoxic trainings of rats (maintenance in the test chamber at the "altitude" 4 km above the sea level for 7 hours a day for two weeks) prevent pneumonia-induced activation of peroxidation for lipids of the liver mitochondria. This increases the phosphorylating respiration rate when lipemic serum is used as an oxidation substrate (not succinate). In these experiments the efficiency of oxidative phosphorylation (delta ADP/delta O) when either succinate and glutamate or glutamate and malate have been oxidated corresponded to the values typical of intact animals and was higher when lipemic serum was used. It is supposed that rearrangement of energy reactions of mitochondria is connected with intensification of utilization of lipids and conjugation between their oxidation and phosphorylation. This rearrangement is apparently aimed to prevent the energy deficiency in the organism which arises in patients with pneumonia.