Nitric oxide, prostaglandins, and impaired cerebral blood flow autoregulation in group B streptococcal neonatal meningitis

Impaired autoregulation of cerebral blood flow (CBF) contributes to CNS damage during neonatal meningitis. We tested (i) the hypothesis that cerebrovascular autoregulation is impaired during early onset group B streptococcal (GBS) meningitis, (ii) whether this impairment is regulated by vasoactive mediators such as prostaglandins and (or) nitric oxide (NO), and (iii) whether this impairment is preventable by specific and (or) nonspecific inhibitors: dexamethasone, ibuprofen, and Nomega-nitro-L-arginine, a NO inhibitor. Sterile saline or 10(9) colony-forming units (cfu) of heat-killed GBS was injected into the cerebral ventricle of newborn piglets. CBF autoregulation was determined by altering cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) with balloon-tipped catheters placed in the aorta. GBS produced a narrow range of CBF autoregulation due to an impairment at the upper limit of CPP. We report that in vivo in the early stages (first 2 h) of induced GBS inflammation (i) GBS impairs the upper limit of cerebrovascular autoregulation; (ii) ibuprofen, dexamethasone, and Nomega-nitro-L-arginine not only prevent this GBS-induced autoregulatory impairment but improve the range of cerebrovascular autoregulation; (iii) these autoregulatory changes do not involve circulating cerebral prostanoids; and (iv) the observed changes correlate with the induction of NO synthase gene expression. Thus, acute early onset GBS-induced impairment of the upper limit of CBF autoregulation can be correlated with increases of NO synthase production, suggesting that NO is a vasoactive mediator of CBF.