Monocrotaline (MCT)-induced pulmonary hypertension (PH) in the rat is a widely used experimental model. We have previously shown that MCT pyrrole (MCTP) produces loss of caveolin-1 (cav-1) and endothelial nitric oxide synthase from plasma membrane raft microdomains in pulmonary arterial endothelial cells (PAEC) with the trapping of these proteins in the Golgi organelle (the Golgi blockade hypothesis). In the present study, we investigated the mechanisms underlying this intracellular trafficking block in experiments in cell culture and in the MCT-treated rat. In cell culture, PAEC showed trapping of cav-1 in Golgi membranes as early as 6 h after exposure to MCTP. Phenotypic megalocytosis and a reduction in anterograde trafficking (assayed in terms of the secretion of horseradish peroxidase derived from exogenously transfected expression constructs) were evident within 12 h after MCTP. Cell fractionation and immunofluorescence techniques revealed the marked accumulation of diverse Golgi tethers, soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF) attachment protein receptors (SNAREs), and soluble NSF attachment proteins (SNAPs), which mediate membrane fusion during vesicular trafficking (GM130, p115, giantin, golgin 84, clathrin heavy chain, syntaxin-4, -6, Vti1a, Vti1b, GS15, GS27, GS28, SNAP23, and ␣-SNAP) in the enlarged/ circumnuclear Golgi in MCTP-treated PAEC and A549 lung epithelial cells. Moreover, NSF, an ATPase required for the "disassembly" of SNARE complexes subsequent to membrane fusion, was increasingly sequestered in non-Golgi membranes. Immunofluorescence studies of lung tissue from MCT-treated rats confirmed enlargement of perinuclear Golgi elements in lung arterial endothelial and parenchymal cells as early as 4 days after MCT. Thus MCTinduced PH represents a disease state characterized by dysfunction of Golgi tethers, SNAREs, and SNAPs and of intracellular vesicular trafficking.soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptors; endothelium; intracellular membrane trafficking; Golgi blockade PULMONARY HYPERTENSION (PH) is a progressive disease with high morbidity and mortality (10). As the clinical manifestations of PH typically occur long after the initial injury, experimental models provide an opportunity to investigate the initiating mechanism at the cellular and biochemical levels (45). Among experimental models of PH, administration of the pyrrolizidine alkaloid monocrotaline (MCT) to the juvenile male rat has and continues to be used extensively (21,29). In this model, progressive PH develops 10 -14 days after a single injection of MCT. The injected MCT is converted to its active pyrrolic derivative [MCT pyrrole (MCTP)] by the cytochrome P-450 system in the liver (36). The bioactive MCTP, which has a short half-life (ϳ3 s in aqueous medium), affects the first vascular bed it encounters: the pulmonary arterial system. The major cellular targets of MCT in the rat lung include the pulmonary arterial endothelial cells (PAEC), pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells (PASMC), and ...