Fibrosis, defined as an abnormal increase of tissue collagen fibres, is an important component of cardiac remodelling in patients with hypertension. Cardiac remodelling may in turn lead to increased myocardial stiffness, left ventricular (LV) dysfunctions, and ultimately to heart failure. A growing body of evidence indicates that the renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system (RAAS) plays an importan...

UNLABELLED Myocardial fibrosis is always present in end-stage heart failure and is a major independent predictor of adverse cardiac outcome. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is an imaging method that permits a non-invasive assessment of the heart and has been established as the "gold standard" for the evaluation of cardiac anatomy and function, as well as for quantifying focal myocardial fibros...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that pharmacological plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI)-1 inhibition protects against renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system-induced cardiovascular injury, the effect of a novel orally active small-molecule PAI-1 inhibitor, PAI-039, was examined in a mouse model of angiotensin (Ang) II-induced vascular remodeling and cardiac fibrosis. METHODS AND RESULTS Unin...

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. This risk is magnified by certain antiretrovirals, particularly the protease inhibitor ritonavir, but the pathophysiology of this connection is unknown. We postulated that a major mechanism for antiretroviral-associated cardiac disease is pathologic fibrosis linked to platelet activation with ...

BACKGROUND Cardiac fibrosis occurs with normal aging, but the extent of this process and its effect on cardiac function is unknown. Fibrosis in the nonhypertensive elderly patient is thought to be due to decreased degradation, and not increased deposition, of collagen. The cause of this decreased degradation is unknown. Athletes commonly develop cardiac hypertrophy, and recent evidence has link...

Objective: Activation of several signal transduction pathways, including cardiac inflammation and fibrosis, are important parts of structural and functional changes in diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM), which is a leading cause of cardiovascular complications. NF-κB signaling pathway plays critical roles in promoting cardiac inflammation and cardiac fibrosis. It has been reported that hesperetin co...

Elevated interleukin-4 (IL-4) levels are associated with cardiac fibrosis in hypertension and heart failure in both patients and experimental animals. We hypothesized that chronically elevated IL-4 induces cardiac fibrosis, resulting in a predisposition of the heart to angiotensin II-induced damage. Wild-type Balb/c (WT, high circulating IL-4) and IL-4-deficient Balb/c mice (IL-4(-/-)) were use...

Fibroblast activation is a hallmark feature of pathological remodeling the heart and represents an attractive target for therapeutic intervention. Pharmacological inhibition chromatin enzymes reduces cardiac fibrosis, but underlying transcriptional regulatory mechanisms remain poorly understood. Using single-cell genomics to profile alterations in landscape during stress-induced remodeling, Ale...

Abstract Purpose of Review Resistant hypertension (RH) is a major contributor to cardiovascular diseases and associated with increased all-cause mortality. Cardiac changes such as impaired left ventricular (LV) function, hypertrophy (LVH), myocardial fibrosis, enlarged atrium (LA) are consequences chronic exposure an elevated blood pressure. The purpose this review article demonstrate the poten...

BACKGROUND It remains unclear how mineralocorticoids induce cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis. Recently, activation of the calcium-dependent phosphatase, calcineurin, has been shown to induce cardiac hypertrophy. In the present study, we examine the role of calcineurin in mineralocorticoid-induced cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis. METHODS AND RESULTS Uninephrectomized Wistar-Kyoto rats were pl...