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Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF or vascular permeability factor), a direct-acting, endothelial cell-specific mitogen, has been suggested to be involved in development and maintenance of vasculatures in tumor neovascularization and in normal tissues. To investigate possible roles of VEGF in ischemic hearts, we studied induction of VEGF mRNA by ischemia and hypoxia using coronary artery-ligated hearts in vivo and perfused hearts and cultured myocardial cells in vitro. VEGF mRNA was potently induced by ischemia in the heart in vivo. In perfused hearts, maximum expression was rapidly induced (within 30 min) by transient reversible ischemia (5-10 min of ischemia) and lasted at least 3 h. Induction was also caused by hypoxia, which was confirmed in perfused hearts and cultured myocardial cells. These results suggest that induction of VEGF mRNA is upregulated by oxygen deprivation in the heart and that not only infarction but also chronic ischemia in the clinical setting could induce VEGF as a potent angiogenesis factor to stimulate coronary collateral formation.

Abstract-Hypertensive cardiovascular damage is accelerated by salt loading but counteracted by dietary potassium supplementation. We suggested recently that antioxidant actions of potassium contribute to protection against salt-induced cardiac dysfunction. Therefore, we examined whether potassium supplementation ameliorated cuff-induced vascular injury in salt-sensitive hypertension via suppression of oxidative stress. Four-week-old Dahl salt-sensitive rats were fed a normal-salt (0.3% NaCl), high-salt (8% NaCl), or high-salt plus high-potassium (8% KCl) diet for 5 weeks, and some of the rats fed a high-salt diet were also given antioxidants. One week after the start of the treatments, a silicone cuff was implanted around the femoral artery. Examination revealed increased cuff-induced neointimal proliferation with adventitial macrophage infiltration in arteries from salt-loaded Dahl salt-sensitive rats compared with that in arteries from non-salt-loaded animals (intima/media ratio: 0.471Ϯ0.070 versus 0.302Ϯ0.037; PϽ0.05), associated with regional superoxide overproduction and reduced nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase activation and mRNA overexpression. On the other hand, simultaneous potassium supplementation attenuated salt-induced neointimal hyperplasia (intima/media ratio: 0.205Ϯ0.012; PϽ0.001), adventitial macrophage infiltration, superoxide overproduction, and reduced nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase activation and overexpression. Antioxidants, which decrease vascular oxidative stress, also reduced neointima formation induced by salt excess. In conclusion, high-potassium diets seems to have a protective effect against the development of vascular damage induced by salt loading mediated, at least in part, through suppression of the production of reactive oxygen species probably generated by reduced nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase. Key Words: hypertension Ⅲ sodium Ⅲ potassium Ⅲ antioxidants Ⅲ arteries N umerous studies have demonstrated that excessive salt intake causes cardiovascular damage and that this was counteracted by potassium supplementation. 1 According to the earlier report, 2 salt loading reduced the survival rate of Dahl salt-sensitive (DS) rats, a model of salt-sensitive hypertension, whereas potassium supplementation alleviated this salt-induced premature mortality, independent of its hypotensive action. It has been speculated that this may be a result of the vasoprotective effect of potassium, because potassium supplementation has been shown to ameliorate vascular endothelial dysfunction in salt-loaded DS rats. 3 Also, Ma et al 4 clearly demonstrated that high-potassium intake inhibited neointimal formation in several vascular injury models, such as a balloon injury of rat carotid and swine coronary 5 arteries from animals without hypertension. Thus, dietary potassium may have vasoprotective mechanisms beyond the blood pressure (BP)-lowering effect. Although it has been shown in in vitro experiments that potassium inhibited migration 6 an...

Background-In our previous study, adrenomedullin (AM) overexpression could limit the arterial intimal hyperplasia induced by cuff injury in rats. However, it remains to be elucidated whether endogenous AM plays a role against vascular injury. Methods and Results-We used the AM knockout mice to investigate the effect of endogenous AM. Compared with wild-type (AM ϩ/ϩ ) mice, heterozygous AM knockout (AM ϩ/Ϫ ) mice had the increased intimal thickening of the cuff-injured femoral artery, concomitantly with lesser AM staining. In AM ϩ/Ϫ mice, cuff placement increased both the production of superoxide anions (O 2 Ϫ ) measured by coelentarazine chemiluminescence and the immunostaining of p67 phox and gp91 phox , subunits of NAD(P)H oxidase in the adventitia, associated with the increment of CD45-positive leukocytes, suggesting that the stimulated formation of radical oxygen species accompanied chronic adventitial inflammation. Not only the AM gene transfection but also the treatment of NAD(P)H oxidase inhibitor apocynin and membrane-permeable superoxide dismutase mimetic tempol could limit cuff-induced intimal hyperplasia in AM

To clarify the molecular mechanism underlying the lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) signaling, we studied the effect of LPC on the intracellular free calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i) in murine peritoneal macrophages. LPC when added alone induced biphasic elevation of [Ca2+]i, which consisted of a rapid increase followed by sustained elevation. LPC, when added with equimolar cholesterol, induced only the rapid increase in [Ca2+]i, which was blocked by WEB-2086, a selective platelet-activating factor (PAF) receptor antagonist. These results suggest LPC exerts a specific Ca2+ signaling. The sustained elevation reflected the cell lysis. Furthermore, we confirmed its pathway in a more specific manner using cloned PAF receptors expressed in Chinese hamster ovary cells. LPC induced an elevation of [Ca2+]i in a concentration-dependent manner only when the PAF receptor had been expressed, and the elevation of [Ca2+]i was blocked by WEB-2086. Taken together, LPC transduces Ca2+ signaling via the PAF receptor. Activation of the PAF receptor by LPC may indicate its novel important role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.