PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) on the components of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) in podocytes and to understand the mechanism of these effects. METHODS Immortalized mouse podocytes were exposed to various concentrations of AGEs for different time intervals. The expression levels of angiotensinogen (AGT), angiote...

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of transient prehypertensive treatment with losartan compared with amlodipine in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) on long-term blood pressure (BP), cardiac and renal protection. SHRs were prehypertensively treated with losartan, amlodipine or saline. Rats were followed up until 46 weeks of age. The left ventricular (LV) geometry and f...

BACKGROUND Cardiac fibroblasts play important functional and pathophysiological roles. Intracellular ("intracrine") angiotensin-II (Ang-II) signaling regulates intercellular communication, excitability, and gene expression in cardiomyocytes; however, the existence and role of intracrine Ang-II signaling in cardiac fibroblasts is unstudied. Here, we evaluated the localization of Ang-II receptors...

BACKGROUND In a previous study we demonstrated that central administration of compound 21 (C21), a nonpeptide AT2R agonist, inhibited sympathetic tone in normal rats. In this study, we hypothesized that C21 exerts a similar effect in rats with coronary ligation-induced heart failure (HF). METHODS C21 was intracerebroventricularly infused for 7 days by osmotic mini pump. Blood pressure (BP) an...