Mitochondria and left ventricular hypertrophy

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is one of the vicious organ damages of essential hypertension. It contributes a lot to high mortality of essential hypertension due to sudden cardiac death, ventricular arrhythmia and heart failure. Many factors involve in the pathogenesis of hypertension-induced LVH including inherited variants as well as environmental factors. For the genic influence, nucleus’ involvement has been discussed for years. However, much fewer interest has been put in the other inherited system— mitochondrion. To make clear the relationship of mitochondria and LVH, we try to illustrate the clinical and pathological characteristics of LVH, the structure and function of mitochondria and mitochondrial role in LVH as follows.