Experimental renovascular hypertension or supravalvular aortic constriction results in left ventricular hypertrophy and impaired minimum coronary vascular resistance. However, these experimental models expose the coronary arteries to increased intra-arterial pressure, so that hypertensive vascular changes might be responsible for the impaired minimum coronary resistance. This study was performe...

Tagashira H, Bhuiyan S, Shioda N, Hasegawa H, Kanai H, Fukunaga K. 1-Receptor stimulation with fluvoxamine ameliorates transverse aortic constriction-induced myocardial hypertrophy and dysfunction in mice. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 299: H1535–H1545, 2010. First published August 27, 2010; doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00198.2010.—Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are known to reduce p...

AIMS The transcription factor hexamethylene-bis-acetamide-inducible protein 1 (HEXIM1) regulates myocardial vascularization and growth during cardiogenesis. Our aim was to determine whether HEXIM1 also has a beneficial role in modulating vascularization, myocardial growth, and function within the adult heart. METHODS AND RESULTS To achieve our objective, we created and investigated a mouse li...

AIMS Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) can mediate myocardial remodelling, hypertrophy, and fibrosis in heart disease. We investigated the impact of TIMP2 vs. TIMP3 deficiency in angiotensin II (Ang II)-induced myocardial remodelling and cardiac dysfunction. METHODS AND RESULTS TIMP2(-/-), TIMP3(-/-), and wild-type (WT) mice received Ang II/saline (Alzet pump) for 2 weeks. Ang II...

As the most common cardiac disease, myocardial infarction is followed by hypertrophy of cardiac myocytes and reconstruction of ventricular structure. The up-regulation of a series of factors including metalloproteinases, inflammatory factors, and growth factors after primary infarction lead to the hypertrophy, apoptosis, necrosis, and fibroblast proliferation in cardiac muscle tissues. Recent s...

To evaluate the alteration of myocardial contractility in hypertensive patients with different left ventricular geometric patterns by the end-systolic stress-midwall fractional shortening relation. Echocardiography was applied to study the left ventricular geometry and cardiac function among 117 cases of essential hypertension, with 45 normal cases as control(s). Left ventricular mass index (LV...

Renovascular hypertension alters cardiac structure and function. Autophagy is activated during left ventricular hypertrophy and linked to adverse cardiac function. The angiotensin II receptor blocker, valsartan, lowers blood pressure and is cardioprotective, but whether it modulates autophagy in the myocardium is unclear. We hypothesized that valsartan would alleviate autophagy and improve left...

The heart carries out its pumping function by converting the chemical energy stored in fatty acids and glucose into the mechanical energy of actin-myosin interaction of myofibrils. Development of congestive heart failure is usually preceded by a period of compensated left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and alterations in myocardial bioenergetics have been considered to play an important role in ...

BACKGROUND The composition of a diet can influence myocardial metabolism and development of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). The impact of a high-fat diet in chronic left ventricular volume overload (VO) causing eccentric LVH is unknown. This study examined the effects of chronic ingestion of a high-fat diet in rats with chronic VO caused by severe aortic valve regurgitation (AR) on LVH, fun...

Coronary pressure-flow relations during autoregulated and vasodilated flow states were compared between eight dogs with renovascular hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy and 12 normal dogs. Each relation was constructed from serial steady-state measurements of end-diastolic coronary pressure and flow during perfusion of the circumflex artery by an extracorporeal circuit at controlled d...