Response to Letter Regarding Article, “Differential Cardiac Remodeling in Preload Versus Afterload”

We would like to thank Reil et al for their interesting discussion. They argue that wall stress of mice with transversal aortic constriction (TAC) may have been higher than those of mice with aortocaval shunt (shunt), which would be supported by lack of brain natriuretic peptide expression in shunt. We believe that we can disprove the arguments and the conclusion of Reil et al for the following reasons: 1. After 1 week of increased load under both conditions, hypertrophy, as measured by left ventricular weight per tibia length, is similarly increased in both models, and this holds true for myocyte minimal fiber diameter as well (Figure 1 of our article).12. It was recently shown under well-controlled in vitro conditions that myocardial expression of brain natriuretic peptide increases only …