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Myocardial Relaxin Counteracts Hypertrophy in Hypertensive Rats
Author(s) -
DSCHIETZIG THOMAS,
BARTSCH CORNELIA,
KINKEL TILL,
BAUMANN GERT,
STANGL KARL
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1282.066
Subject(s) - relaxin , medicine , endocrinology , muscle hypertrophy , mapk/erk pathway , kinase , endogeny , biology , receptor , microbiology and biotechnology
A bstract : Current findings in male relaxin knockout mice indicate antifibrotic and positive lusitropic actions of relaxin on the myocardium. We investigated in 12‐month‐old male spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and age‐matched male Wistar‐Kyoto rats (WKY) whether RLX shows antihypertrophic actions as well. SHR showed left heart hypertrophy and a selective elevation of left atrial and ventricular relaxin peptide which inversely correlated with the degree of hypertrophy. In adult rat cardiomyocytes, relaxin blunted phenylephrine‐induced hypertrophy by inhibiting activated ERK‐1/2 kinases. In conclusion, endogenous myocardial relaxin, upregulated in left heart hypertrophy, exerts antihypertrophic effects by inhibition of activated ERK‐1/2 kinases.