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Query: UMLS:C0038454 (stroke)
 147,016 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Deendothelialized rings of rabbit aorta relax after exposure to UV light because of release of a relaxing factor that is similar if not identical to nitric oxide. We tested the hypothesis that production of the photo-induced relaxing factor is impaired in a rat model of genetic hypertension. Thoracic aortas were removed from adult Wistar-Kyoto rats and stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats. The vessels were cut into rings, denuded of endothelium, and placed in a muscle bath for isometric force measurement. Rings were contracted with phenylephrine, and relaxation was measured after exposure to UV light. Aortic rings from stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats relaxed to a greater extent after exposure to UV light than did rings from Wistar-Kyoto rats. An inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase (N omega-nitro-L-arginine) greatly potentiated the relaxation responses to light in both strains, and these enhanced relaxations were attenuated by tetraethylammonium chloride, potassium chloride, ouabain, or inhibitors of guanylate cyclase. These results suggest that UV irradiation induces relaxation in aortic smooth muscle that is greater in hypertensive than normotensive rats and is greatly enhanced after addition of inhibitors of nitric oxide production. Thus, the unidentified photo-induced relaxing factor is not solely nitric oxide but may also represent either a hyperpolarizing factor, because depolarization blocks the responses entirely, or possibly smooth muscle guanylate cyclase that might itself be photoactivable.
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PMID:A photoactivable source of relaxing factor in genetic hypertension. 820 24

In renal cross-transplantation studies between four different strains of genetically hypertensive rats including Dahl salt-sensitive hypertensive rats, Milan hypertensive rats, spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and stroke-prone SHR (SHRSP) on the one hand and their respective normotensive control strains on the other hand, it was found that BP determinants were carried within the kidney. To determine whether post-transplantation hypertension in recipients of an SHRSP kidney was due to a primary or secondary defect in the renal graft, hypertension in SHRSP kidney donors was prevented by chronic antihypertensive drug treatment. Despite sustained BP normalisation in SHRSP kidney donors, the recipients developed post-transplantation hypertension. This finding indicates that SHRSP kidneys carry a primary defect which can elicit hypertension. F1 hybrids bred from SHRSP and normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rat (WKY) parents show an age-related increase in arterial BP up to borderline hypertensive levels. Renal transplantation studies in young rats indicate that the development of borderline hypertension in (SHRSP x WKY)-F1 hybrids can be blunted by bilateral nephrectomy and transplantation of a WKY kidney. Clinical studies in human renal transplant patients also indicate that the genetic background of the kidney donor with respect to predisposition for genetic hypertension significantly influences BP and/or the need for antihypertensive medication in the recipients. Together, the results of renal transplantation studies in animals and humans suggest that a genetic defect in the kidney plays a major role in the pathogenesis of primary hypertension.
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PMID:Does the kidney play a role in the aetiology of primary hypertension? Evidence from renal transplantation studies in rats and humans. 851 91

Calcium intake has been implicated as being an important factor in the development and treatment of hypertension. The mechanisms underlying the relationship between calcium and blood pressure are not yet clearly defined. Experimental studies have documented an inverse association between calcium intake and blood pressure level. For 15 years it has been shown that calcium supplementation is effective in lowering blood pressure in hypertensive rats and, on the other hand, calcium deprivation results in increased blood pressure levels. Enriched calcium diets decrease blood pressure in genetic hypertension displayed by spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), stroke-prone SHR, Lyon hypertensive rats or Dahl salt-sensitive rats and, in volume-dependent hypertension induced by saline and mineralocorticoid or angiotensin II administration in Wistar or Sprague-Dawley rats. Efficacy is observed with calcium carbonate added in the diet and with calcium chloride or calcium gluconate in drinking water. Compared with the normal level in the diet (0.5% to 1%), calcium supplementation represents mainly a fourfold increase whose effect is more intense in young weaning animals treated for a long-lasting period (4 to 10 weeks).
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PMID:Blood pressure effects of calcium intake in experimental models of hypertension. 858 13

Endothelins (ET) are 21-aminoacid peptides produced ubiquitously, which were discovered originally as endothelial products. These peptides may play important roles in cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology. As the pathophysiologic roles of endothelins in cardiovascular disease become increasingly apparent, the potential therapeutic use of endothelin antagonists or endothelin converting enzyme inhibitors is recognized. The main endothelin produced by the endothelium is ET-1. Endothelin-1 is overexpressed in the vascular wall of salt-dependent models of hypertension, such as DOCA-salt hypertensive rats, DOCA-salt-treated spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Dahl salt-sensitive rats, and in stroke-prone SHR, angiotensin II-infused rats and 1-kidney 1 clip Goldblatt hypertensive rats, but not in SHR, 2-K 1C hypertensive rats or L-NAME-treated rats. The vasoconstrictor effect of ET-1 may contribute to blood pressure elevation and its growth-promoting action to vascular hypertrophy in the hypertensive models which overexpress ET-1 in blood vessels. In rats without generalized activation of the endothelin system, expression of ET-1 is often enhanced in coronary arteries, which suggests a role for ET-1 in myocardial ischemia in hypertension. In rats overexpressing ET-1, ETA/B and ETA-selective antagonists lowered blood pressure slightly, and significantly reduced vascular growth, particularly of small arteries, suggesting that ET-1 has a direct effect on growth. Protection from renal injury and from stroke has also been demonstrated in hypertensive rats treated with endothelin antagonists. In normotensive human subjects endothelin-dependent tone can be shown in the forearm. In a study of mild hypertensive patients, the ETA/B antagonist bosentan reduced blood pressure similarly to an ACE inhibitor. Moderate to severe hypertensive patients presented enhanced expression of ET-1 mRNA in the endothelium of subcutaneous resistance arteries. In blacks with familial hypertension increased plasma levels of endothelin have been found. Thus, ET-1 may play a role in some experimental hypertensive models and in human hypertension. In summary, endothelial ET-1 may be overexpressed in the more severe forms of hypertension, and in certain special populations which may respond particularly well to endothelin antagonism. Endothelin antagonists may prove to be effective disease-modifying agents if in future clinical trials they are shown clinically to blunt vascular growth and endothelial dysfunction, reduce stroke and exert the cardioprotective and renal protective effects already reported in experimental hypertension. These agents could contribute to reduce the long-term complications of hypertension, which remains to be demonstrated in humans.
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PMID:Endothelin: role in hypertension. 983 May 7

Experimental models of genetic hypertension are used to develop paradigms to study human essential hypertension while removing some of the complexity inherent in the study of human subjects. Since 1991 several quantitative trait loci responsible for blood pressure regulation have been identified in various rat crosses. More recently, a series of interesting quantitative trait loci influencing cardiac hypertrophy, stroke, metabolic syndrome and renal damage has also been described. It is recognized that the identification of large chromosomal regions containing a quantitative trait locus is only a first step towards gene identification. The next step is the production of congenic strains and substrains to confirm the existence of the quantitative trait locus and to narrow down the chromosomal region of interest. Several congenic strains have already been produced, with further refinement of the methodology currently in progress. The ultimate goal is to achieve positional cloning of the causal gene, a task which has so far been elusive. There are several areas of cross-fertilization between experimental and human genetics of hypertension, with a successful transfer of two loci directly from rats to humans and with new pharmacogenetic approaches which may be utilized in both experimental and clinical settings.
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PMID:Genetics of experimental hypertension. 988 70

Exercise improves muscle insulin sensitivity and GLUT4 contents. We investigated the beneficial effects of swimming training on insulin sensitivity and genetic hypertension using stroke-prone hypertensive rats (SHRSP). We studied the relationship between genetic hypertension and insulin resistance in SHRSP and Wistar Kyoto rats (WKY) as a control. The systolic blood pressure of SHRSP was significantly reduced by 4-week swimming training (208.4 +/- 6.8 mmHg vs. 187.2 +/- 4.1 mmHg, p < 0.05). The swimming training also resulted in an approximately 20% increase in the insulin-stimulated glucose transport activity (p < 0.05) of soleus muscle strips and an approximately 3-fold increase in the plasma membrane GLUT4 protein expression (p < 0.01) in SHRSP. However, basal and insulin-stimulated glucose transport activity and GLUT4 contents were not significantly different between WKY and SHRSP. There was no difference in insulin resistance in skeletal muscle of SHRSP as compared with WKY. Our results indicated swimming training exercise improved not only hypertension but also muscle insulin sensitivity and GLUT4 protein expression in SHRSP.
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PMID:Training in swimming reduces blood pressure and increases muscle glucose transport activity as well as GLUT4 contents in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats. 1005 26

Recently it has been suggested that Mg deficiency may play a key role in hypertension and several cardiovascular diseases. In order to investigate the status of Mg in genetic hypertension, the cytosolic free Mg2+ concentration ([Mg2+]i) in the lymphocytes and serum concentrations of free Mg2+ and total Mg were measured in spontaneously hypertensive rats/Izumo (SHR/Izm), stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats/Izumo (SHRSP/Izm), and Wistar-Kyoto rats/Izumo (WKY/Izm). In addition, the basal cytosolic free Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) was assessed in the three strains. Systolic blood pressure was highest in SHRSP/Izm and lowest in WKY/Izm. No significant differences were found in either the serum free Mg2+ concentrations or the serum total Mg concentrations among WKY/Izm, SHR/Izm, and SHRSP/Izm. [Mg2+]i in the lymphocytes was significantly higher in SHR/Izm than in WKY/Izm (254 +/- 51 versus 201 +/- 36 mumol/liter, p < 0.05), but the [Mg2+]i in SHRSP/Izm (211 +/- 34 mumol/liter) was at the same level as in WKY/Izm. No significant correlation was found between [Mg2+]i in the lymphocytes and systolic blood pressure. Basal [Ca2+]i did not differ among the three strains. Thus, an increase in [Ca2+]i is not obligatory in all cells of genetically hypertensive rats. Mg deficiency may not exist in the intracellular or extracellular space in genetically hypertensive rats.
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PMID:Lack of deficiency in extracellular and intralymphocyte free Mg2+ in genetically hypertensive rats. 1021 57

The hypothesis that the decreased nitric oxide (NO) availability observed in spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone rats (SHRSP) is due to excess superoxide (O2-) was examined. O2- generation, measured by lucigenin chemiluminescence, was studied in 12- to 16-week male and female Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY) and SHRSP. In addition, expression of the gene encoding endothelial NO synthase, the enzyme involved in NO generation, was investigated. O2- generation was increased in male and female SHRSP (4.11+/-0.24 and 3. 84+/-0.28 nmol O2-. min-1. mg-1 respectively) compared with their WKY counterparts and was significantly higher in male than female WKY (1.22+/-0.08 in males and 0.8+/-0.08 nmol O2-. min-1. mg-1 respectively) (SHRSP versus WKY P<0.0001, 95% CI -3.39, -2.51; male versus female WKY P=0.0029, 95% CI -0.67, -0.17). Removal of the endothelium by rubbing or addition of NO synthase inhibitors attenuated O2- generation in SHRSP but not WKY. In males, removal of the endothelium reduced O2- generation from 3.86+/-0.12 to 1.35+/-0. 08 nmol. min-1. mg-1 (P<0.0001, 95% CI 2.29, 2.81), whereas addition of L-NAME caused a reduction from 4.13+/-0.17 to 1.32+/-0.16 nmol. min-1. mg-1 (P<0.0001, 95% CI 2.36, 2.83). Similar reductions were observed in females. L-arginine had no significant effect, but tetrahydrobiopterin significantly decreased O2- generation in SHRSP from 4.04+/-0.11 to 2.36+/-0.40 nmol. min-1. mg-1 (P=0.0026, 95% CI 0.89, 2.44). Endothelial NO synthase mRNA expression was significantly greater in SHRSP than in WKY and in WKY males than in WKY females. These results show that O2- generation is increased in SHRSP and that the tissue and enzymatic sources of this excess O2- appear to be the endothelium and eNOS, respectively. The increase in O2- generation could explain the decreased availability of basal NO observed in this model of genetic hypertension.
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PMID:Superoxide anion production is increased in a model of genetic hypertension: role of the endothelium. 1037 15

Blood pressure is a quantitative trait that has a strong genetic component in humans and rats. Several selectively bred strains of rats with divergent blood pressures serve as an animal model for genetic dissection of the causes of inherited hypertension. The goal is to identify the genetic loci controlling blood pressure, i.e., the so-called quantitative trait loci (QTL). The theoretical basis for such genetic dissection and recent progress in understanding genetic hypertension are reviewed. The usual paradigm is to produce segregating populations derived from a hypertensive and normotensive strain and to seek linkage of blood pressure to genetic markers using recently developed statistical techniques for QTL analysis. This has yielded candidate QTL regions on almost every rat chromosome, and also some interactions between QTL have been defined. These statistically defined QTL regions are much too large to practice positional cloning to identify the genes involved. Most investigators are, therefore, fine mapping the QTL using congenic strains to substitute small segments of chromosome from one strain into another. Although impressive progress has been made, this process is slow due to the extensive breeding that is required. At this point, no blood pressure QTL have met stringent criteria for identification, but this should be an attainable goal given the recently developed genomic resources for the rat. Similar experiments are ongoing to look for genes that influence cardiac hypertrophy, stroke, and renal failure and that are independent of the genes for hypertension.
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PMID:Genetic analysis of inherited hypertension in the rat. 1061 67

Human essential hypertension is a complex, multifactorial, quantitative trait under a polygenic control. Several strategies have been developed over the last decade to dissect genetic determinants of hypertension. Of these, the most successful have been studies that identified rare mendelian syndromes in which a single gene mutation causes high blood pressure. The attempts to identify multiple genes, each with a small contribution to the common polygenic form of hypertension, have been less successful. Several laboratories focused their attention on rat models of genetic hypertension, which can be considered as a reductionist paradigm for human disease. Using numerous crosses between hypertensive and normotensive strains, investigators identified several quantitative trait loci (QTL) for blood pressure subphenotypes and for cardiovascular complications such as left ventricular hypertrophy, kidney failure, stroke, and insulin resistance. Furthermore, congenic strains have been produced to confirm the existence of some of these QTL and to narrow down the chromosomal regions of interest. A number of interesting strategies have been developed, including a "speed" congenic strategy perfected by our group in Glasgow. However, the limit of congenic strategy is estimated at 1 cM, which corresponds to 2x10(6) base pairs of DNA and approximately 50 candidate genes. It is envisaged that gene expression profiling with cDNA microarrays might allow a quick progression toward the gene identification within cardiovascular QTL. In parallel experimental effort, several laboratories have been developing gene transfer/therapy strategies with adenoviral or adeno-associated viral vectors used, for example, to overexpress protective vascular genes such as vascular endothelial growth factor or endothelial nitric oxide synthase. It is anticipated that further developments in positional cloning of susceptibility and severity genes in hypertension and its complications will lead to a direct transfer of these discoveries to essential hypertension in humans and will ultimately produce novel targets for local and systemic gene therapy in cardiovascular disease.
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PMID:Genes and hypertension: from gene mapping in experimental models to vascular gene transfer strategies. 1064 93


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