Aldosterone Is a Vascular Calcification Promoting Factor

Abstract

Objectives Aim: To observe aortic and cardiac aldosterone expression and its receptor changes in rats with vascular calcification, and exogenous aldosterone effects on vascular calcification, so as to explore the significance of aldosterone in vascular calcification. Methods Male SD rats were randomly divided into five groups. (1) Normal control group; (2) Aldosterone group: rats were received aldosterone subcutaneously for 6 weeks (20 mgin 0.1 ml ethanol, 1/ d); (3) Calcification group: rats were received intramuscular injection with vitamin D3 (300 000 IU/kg) and anintragastric dose of nicotine (25 mg/kg, in peanut oil) at 8:00 on the first day; nicotine was gavaged again at 18:00 on the same day. (4) Calcification +aldosterone group: Rats were treated as the calcification group, and also received aldosterone subcutaneously for 6 weeks (20 mg in 0.1 mlethanol, 1/days). (5) Calcification+spironolactone group: Rats were treated as the calcification group, with the exception of oral gavage of spironolactone (40 mg/kg/d)] for 6 weeks. The control group received normal saline injection, oral gavage of peanut oil, and ethanol treatment. At the end of the experiment, the extent of aortic calcification was confirmed by Von Kossa staining and measurement of calcium content. Alkaline phosphatases activity was also evaluated. The deposition of collagen in cardiovascular tissues was measured by masson staining. The content of aldosterone and urotensin II in plasma and aorta were determined by radioimmunoassay. The immunoactivity of mineralocorticoid receptor and urotensin II receptor were evaluated by immunohistochemistry. The content of C-reactive peptide, interleukin-6, tumour necrosis factor-α and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 in the serum were determined by radioimmunoassay. Results Von Kossa staining showed significant aortic calcium deposition in calcified rats. Aortic calcification was further aggravated when aldosterone was added. It was decreased in calcification +spirolactone group as compared with the calcification group, and the calcification+aldosterone group. In addition, aortic calcium content in aldosterone group increased, but not statistically significant ( p>0.05), compared with the control group. In calcification group, the aortic calcium content increased by63.45% p<0.01), and 27.55% p<0.05), respectively, compared with the controls and the aldosterone group. In calcification+aldosterone group, it was elevated by 121.72% p<0.01), 73.02% p<0.01), and 35.65% p<0.01), respectively, compared with the controls, the aldosterone group, and the calcification group. However, in calcification+spironolac-tone group, it decreased by 41.31% p<0.01), and 56.73% p<0.01), than the calcification group and calcification+aldosterone group respectively. Alkaline phosphatase activity showed a similar trend. Vascular and myocardial collagen staining showed that the most obvious staining is seen in the calcification +aldosterone group. It was slightly reduced in the calcification +spironolactone group than the calcifie...

Understanding the Role of Entropy in High Entropy Oxides

“…Beyond oxides and alloys, there are also burgeoning fields based on other materials families, such as high entropy borides, 90 carbides, 91−93 nitrides, 94 chalcogenides, 95,96 and fluorides, 97 as well as different modalities such as twodimensional van der Waals bonded materials 98 and nanoparticles. 99 Materials with disordered anion sublattices, as both the primary and secondary source of configurational entropy, are also an emerging area of interest.…”

“…• Clustering and elemental inhomogeneity: Many of the accepted definitions for a high entropy material take an absence of clustering as an a priori required character-istic. 19,21 Indeed, the presence of clustering would generally suggest that the entropy of mixing is not sufficient to overcome the mixing enthalpy for at least one species in the mixture, rendering it insoluble in the mixture and resulting in macroscopic phase separation. Such a scenario can be observed in some reported HEO materials, such as the fluorite (Ce,Zr,Hf,Sn,Ti)O 2 , where elemental mapping shows segregation of Ce into micron scale domains.…”

“…The goal of this Perspective will be to establish a framework for articulating and beginning to address these questions. We hope that this Perspective article will complement a number of excellent existing reviews that have surveyed known HEO materials, 19,20 discussed their design principles and synthesis, 21 addressed their thermodynamics, 11,19,22 and examined their functional properties. 11,[19][20][21]23…”