Circulating Levels of Endothelin-1 and Big Endothelin-1 in Patients with Essential Hypertension.

Journal: Pathophysiology : the official journal of the International Society for Pathophysiology
Published Date:

Abstract

The role of endothelin-1 (ET-1) in the pathogenesis of hypertension (HTN) is not clearly established. There is evidence that its circulating levels are elevated in some forms of experimental and human HTN, but this was not a consistent finding. Based on these controversial data, we tested serum levels of ET-1 and Big ET-1 (the precursor of ET-1) in patients with essential HTN, comparing the results with those of healthy normotensive controls. The levels of ET-1 and Big ET-1 were measured by ELISA. Our results in patients with essential HTN showed that the mean levels of ET-1 (5.01 ± 2.1 pg/mL) were significantly higher ( = 6.34, = 0.0144) than the mean levels in the control group (3.2 ± 1.0 pg/mL). The levels of Big ET-1 in patients with essential HTN (0.377 ± 0.1 pmol/L) were similar to those in the control group (0.378 ± 0.07 pmol/L) and did not differ significantly ( = 0.00, = 0.9531). These data suggest that ET-1, but not Big ET-1, may play an important role in the pathogenesis of primary HTN.

Authors

  • Krasimir Kostov
    Department of Pathophysiology, Medical University-Pleven, 1 Kliment Ohridski Str., 5800 Pleven, Bulgaria.
  • Alexander Blazhev
    Department of Biology, Medical University-Pleven, 1 Kliment Ohridski Str., 5800 Pleven, Bulgaria.

Keywords

No keywords available for this article.