Dietary salt enhances glomerular endothelial nitric oxide synthase through transforming growth factor-[beta]1. Ying, Wei-Zhong, and Paul W. Sanders. Nephrology Research and Training Center, Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Cell Adhesion and Matrix Research Center, Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine and Department of Physiology & Biophysics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-0007. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Birmingham, AL 35233
APStracts 5:0064F, 1998.
Dietary salt controls production of nitric oxide (NO), a potent paracrine relaxation factor involved in glomerular filtration and salt excretion. We hypothesized that glomerular NO production was enhanced through endothelial nitric oxide synthase (NOS3). Rats in metabolic cages were studied after four days on 0.3% (Lo-salt) or 8.0% (Hi-salt) NaCl diet. Steady-state mRNA and protein levels of NOS3 and calcium-dependent NO production of isolated glomeruli from Hi-salt animals were greater than those values observed in glomeruli from Lo-salt rats. Because dietary salt enhanced glomerular production of transforming growth factor-[beta]1 (TGF-[beta]1) (Am. J. Physiol. 274 (Renal Physiol. 43), (in press), 1998), studies were then conducted to examine the interaction between NOS3 and TGF -[beta]1. Glomerular steady-state levels of mRNA of NOS3 and TGF -[beta]1 directly correlated (r2 = 0.946; p < 0.0001). A neutralizing antibody to TGF-[beta] reduced NOS3 protein and NO production in cultured glomeruli from Hi-salt animals to levels seen in the Lo-salt glomeruli. Thus, dietary salt increased glomerular expression of TGF-[beta]1, which in turn augmented NO production through NOS3.

Received 21 November 1997; accepted in final form 9 March 1998.
APS Manuscript Number F366-7.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Renal Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1998 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 9 March 1998