Chronic inhibition of nitric oxide (NO) synthesis induces cardiac remodeling independent of systemic hemodynamic changes in rats. We examined whether long-acting dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers block myocardial remodeling and whether the activation of 70-kDa S6 kinase (p70S6K) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) are involved. Ten groups of Wistar-Kyoto rats underwent 8 week...

Chronic inhibition of nitric oxide (NO) synthesis induces cardiac remodeling independent of systemic hemodynamic changes in rats. We examined whether long-acting dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers block myocardial remodeling and whether the activation of 70-kDa S6 kinase (p70S6K) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) are involved. Ten groups of Wistar-Kyoto rats underwent 8 week...

Several intracellular enzymes have been shown to have altered total activity or isoenzyme composition in cardiac hypertrophy. This study tests the hypothesis that the accumulation of the fetal-type (BB + MB) creatine kinase (CK) isoenzymes in hypertrophied adult myocardium is related to an increase in blood pressure. Consideration was made for the location, size, and hemodynamic load of the myo...

Chronic inhibition of NO synthesis induces cardiac hypertrophy independent of systemic blood pressure (SBP) by increasing protein synthesis in vivo. We examined whether ACE inhibitors (ACEIs) enalapril and temocapril and angiotensin II type-I receptor antagonists (angiotensin receptor blockers [ARBs]) losartan and CS-866 can block cardiac hypertrophy and whether changes in activation of 70-kDa ...

Low-salt-diet, cyclosporine (CsA; 15 mg/kg per day)-treated rats develop striped interstitial fibrosis, arteriolar hyalinosis, and azotemia similar to the chronic nephropathy observed in humans. To examine the role of angiotensin II in this model, rats on a low-salt diet were given CsA, CsA and the angiotensin II receptor Type I antagonist Losartan (10 mg/kg per day), CsA and hydralazine/furose...

Critics of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the fixed combination of hydralazine hydrochloride, 37.5 mg, and isosorbide dinitrate, 20 mg, for treating heart failure in black patients have suggested that data were insufficient to distinguish treatment effects in black and white people; that distinctions based on race, rather than pathophysiology, were scientifically unreas...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Rapid occlusion of the middle cerebral artery above the rhinal fissure produces a large ischemic infarct in hypertensive rats, but this occlusion results in a minimal lesion in young normotensive rats. Our purpose was to attenuate rising blood pressure in young stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats with hydralazine before the occlusion to determine if the gross inf...

Angiotensin II plays an important role in vascular remodeling. We investigated the role of aldosterone, which is stimulated by angiotensin II, as a mediator of angiotensin II-induced vascular structural and functional alterations. Sprague-Dawley rats (n=8 to 12/group) received angiotensin II (120 ng/kg per minute, subcutaneously) for 14 days +/- spironolactone or hydralazine (25 mg/kg per day)....

Hemorrhage and nonhypotensive hypovolemia are known to increase plasma levels of oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (VP) in rats. The present experiments demonstrated that secretion of OT and VP also are stimulated by acute drug-induced hypotension. Injection of hydralazine abruptly decreased arterial blood pressure in conscious rats and induced Fos expression, a marker of neuronal activation, withi...

The effects of altered dietary salt intake and/or hydralazine-induced hypotension on renal endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) expression were determined in angiotensin type-1a receptor gene knockout (At1a-/-) and wild-type (At1a+/+) mice. In At1a-/- mice, the levels of renal cortical eNOS mRNA and protein were 5 times and 3.5 times higher, respectively, in the high-salt (4% NaCl) group th...