AIMS Heart failure is a major medical problem in the elderly. Neurohormonal activation plays a role in the pathophysiology of heart failure, but is also affected by ageing. The present study was carried out to examine the influence of age on neurohormonal activation and prognosis in patients with chronic heart failure. METHODS AND RESULTS We studied 372 patients with moderate to severe chroni...

The cardiovascular responses to intravenous bolus administration of several synthetic atrial natriuretic peptides were examined in conscious spontaneously hypertensive rats and compared with the hemodynamic effects of continuous infusions of the peptides. Rats were instrumented with pulsed Doppler flow probes to allow measurement of regional blood flow in the conscious, unrestrained hypertensiv...

The gene for atrial natriuretic factor is expressed within the adventitial cells of the rat aortic arch. Atrial natriuretic factor transcripts, similar in overall size (1100-1200 nucleotides) and 5'-termini to those found in the atria, were identified in the arch. Much lower levels (approximately 10-20%) of these transcripts were present in distal thoracic aorta. Atrial natriuretic factor pepti...

The physiological hydroelectrolytic balance and the redox steady state in the kidney are accomplished by an intricate interaction between signals from extrarenal and intrarenal sources and between antinatriuretic and natriuretic factors. Angiotensin II, atrial natriuretic peptide and intrarenal dopamine play a pivotal role in this interactive network. The balance between endogenous antioxidant ...

Although it is assumed that the human heart secretes atrial peptides, direct proof is not available. We therefore measured immunoreactive atrial natriuretic peptide levels in coronary sinus blood and simultaneously in femoral arterial and venous blood from patients before and during stepwise incremental atrial pacing of up to 200 beats per minute. Since the fate of circulating atrial peptides i...

Metabolic Actions Could Confound Advantageous Effects of Combined Angiotensin II Receptor and Neprilysin Inhibition To the Editor: Dual angiotensin II receptor and neprilysin inhibition with LCZ696 provides additive blood pressure lowering in hypertensive patients, likely because of the well-characterized cardiovascular and renal natriuretic peptide actions.1 However, increased natriuretic pept...

Background A heterozygous frameshift (fs) mutation causing a 12 amino acid extension to the C-terminus of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) was recently genetically linked to patients with familial atrial fibrillation [1]. The frameshift product (fsANP), but not wild type ANP (wtANP), was elevated in the serum of affected patients, but the molecular basis for the elevated peptide concentrations ...

BACKGROUND Increased arterial stiffness and higher plasma natriuretic peptide and homocysteine levels are associated with elevated risk for cardiovascular disease. Little is known about the relations of natriuretic peptides and homocysteine to arterial wall stiffness in the community. METHODS AND RESULTS We assessed the relations of plasma N-terminal atrial natriuretic peptide, B-type natriur...

The mechanisms mediating the activation of cardiac gene expression during pressure overload are not fully understood. We examined whether angiotensin II-induced activation of ventricular gene expression is related to blood pressure and ventricular mass or requires other factors by infusing angiotensin II in sham-operated and adrenalectomized rats. In sham-operated rats, angiotensin II (33 micro...

One of the main differences between atrial and ventricular cardiocytes is the presence in former of specific granules with morphological characteristics very similar to secretory granules found in peptide-secreting endocrine cells. It has been suggested that these granules are the storage place for the atrial natriuretic factor. In the rat, water deprivation produces an increase in atrial granu...