A new technique for the study of the impact of arterial elasticity
on left ventricular mass in rats.
Amin, Fatiha, Nathalie Niederhoffer, Rabelais Tatchum-Talom, Touria
Makki, Joel Guillou, Pierre Tankosic, and Jeffrey Atkinson.
Laboratoire de Pharmacologie Cardio-vasculaire, Facult de
Pharmacie, UHP Nancy 1, 5 rue Albert Lebrun, 54000 Nancy,
Laboratoires Thraplix, 46-52 rue Albert, 75640 Paris CEDEX 13, and
INSERM U308, 38 rue Lionnois, 54000 Nancy, France
APStracts 2:0388H, 1995.
We investigated possible links between left ventricular mass and
central arterial elasticity in the adult spontaneously hypertensive
rat (SHR) and in a subgroup of SHR in which blood pressure was
normalized by chronic antihypertensive drug treatment; results were
compared to those of age-matched normotensive WKY rats. Two indices
of arterial elasticity, based on the measurement of aortic pressure
pulse wave velocity, were used. Firstly the slope relating
carotidofemoral pulse wave velocity to blood pressure in the
phenylephrine-infused pithed preparation was used as a pressure
-independent index of wall elasticity. Secondly, in order to account
for hypertension- and treatment-induced aortic remodeling, elastic
modulus was determined from the pulse wave velocity recorded when
blood pressure reached that measured in awake animals prior to
anesthesia and pithing, together with values for wall thickness and
lumen diameter evaluated by histomorphometric analysis following in
situ fixation at the same pressure. In control SHR regression ANOVA
revealed significant correlations between left ventricular mass and
both wave velocity / pressure slope and elastic modulus. Chronic
antihypertensive treatment normalized all three parameters. In
conclusion, this new technique provides experimental evidence of a
link between left ventricular mass and central arterial elasticity.
Received 5 June 1995; accepted in final form 23 August 1995.
APS Manuscript Number H511-5.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Heart Circ. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 23 September 1995.