Recently, a paper by Kim et al. [1] in Nature Medicine magazine in January, 2013 showed that apelin (also known as APLN) inhibits fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) and FGF receptor 1 (FGFR1) expression to ameliorate pulmonary hypertension by regulating the expression of miR-424 and miR-503. This study revealed the molecular mechanism of apelin in inhibiting the process of pulmonary arterial hyp...

BACKGROUND Apelin has various effects on a lot of systems such as central nervous system and cardiovascular system. This study investigated the possible analgesic effects of apelin-13 using the hot-plate and the tail-flick thermal analgesia tests in rats. We also evaluated the mechanism underlying the analgesic effects of apelin-13 by pretreating with Nw-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) o...

Apelin, a recently isolated neuropeptide that is expressed in the supraoptic and the paraventricular nuclei, acts on specific receptors located on vasopressinergic neurons. The increased phasic pattern of these neurons facilitates sustained antidiuresis during dehydration or lactation. Here, we investigated whether apelin interacts with arginine vasopressin (AVP) to maintain body fluid homeosta...

Apelin, a novel peptide with significant cardioactive properties, is upregulated by insulin in adipocytes. However, the mechanism by which insulin promotes apelin production is unknown. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), a heterodimeric transcription factor involved in the angiogenic and metabolic responses to tissue hypoxia, has been shown to be activated by insulin in various settings. We th...

BACKGROUND Omentin-1, vaspin, and apelin are novel adipokines which closely associate with obesity, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and inflammation. The aim of this study was to investigate the circulating levels of omentin-1, vaspin, and apelin in NAFLD patients and to clarify their relationship with biochemical parameters, abdominal obesity, and high sensitive C-reactive protein. ...

PURPOSE Apelin is an endogenous ligand for the angiotensin-1-like receptor APJ. Because apelin has been reported to regulate angiogenesis, the authors searched for associations between apelin and proliferative diabetic retinopathy. METHODS The study included 55 patients undergoing vitrectomy for proliferative diabetic retinopathy (study group) and 34 patients undergoing vitrectomy for idiopat...

Angiogenesis, increased glomerular permeability, and albuminuria are thought to contribute to the progression of diabetic nephropathy (DN). Apelin receptor (APLNR) and the endogenous ligand of APLNR, apelin, induce the sprouting of endothelial cells in an autocrine or paracrine manner, which may be one of the mechanisms of DN. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of apelin in the p...

Apelin was an important factor tumor development but its role in diagnosis of lung cancer remained unknown. In this study, ELISA assay was performed to measure the circulating level of Apelin in plasma samples from 129 lung cancer patients and 57 healthy controls. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the circulating Apelin could act as biomarker in lung cancer diagnosis. The results in...

Antiangiogenic agents transiently normalize tumor vessel structure and improve vessel function, thereby providing a window of opportunity for enhancing the efficacy of chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Currently, there are no reliable predictors or markers reflecting this vessel normalization window during antiangiogenic therapy. Apelin, the expression of which is regulated by hypoxia, and which ha...

The G protein–coupled receptor (GPCR) APJ (X-msr, angiotensin receptor like 1b) was cloned in several laboratories by homology screening, with the goal of identifying new members of this class of cell surface receptor.1 This gene attracted attention because of its sequence similarity to the important angiotensin II type 1 receptor and its highly restricted pattern of expression in endothelial c...