Intermittent pressure overload triggers hypertrophy-independent cardiac dysfunction and vascular rarefaction.

ABSTRACT: For over a century, there has been intense debate as to the reason why some cardiac stresses are pathological and others are physiological. One long-standing theory is that physiological overloads such as exercise are intermittent, while pathological overloads such as hypertension are chronic. In this study, we hypothesized that the nature of the stress on the heart, rather than its duration, is the key determinant of the maladaptive phenotype. To test this, we applied intermittent pressure overload on the hearts of mice and tested the roles of duration and nature of the stress on the development of cardiac failure. Despite a mild hypertrophic response, preserved systolic function, and a favorable fetal gene expression profile, hearts exposed to intermittent pressure overload displayed pat

SUBMITTER: Perrino C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1464895 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature