Previous studies have indicated the kidney plays a dominant role in the long-tern control of arterial pressure and that the pressure-natriuresis relationship is shifted to higher pressures in every genetic and experimental model of hypertension that has been studied to date. However, the factors that alter renal function and the genes and pathways involved remain to be determined. Previous work done in this program revealed that pressure-natriuresis is associated with elevations in renal medullary blood flow and interstitial hydrostatic pressure (RIHP) and inhibition of Na+ transport in the proximal tubule. During the last funding period, we found that elevations in RIHP stimulate the renal formation of 20-HETE and that 20-HETE contributes to the pressure-natriuretic response by inhibiting sodium transport in the proximal tubule. We further demonstrated that blockade of the formation of 20-HETE promotes the development of salt-sensitive hypertension and obtained exciting new evidence that transfer of a 5 cM region of chromosome 5 containing the CYP4504A alleles from Lewis rats onto the Dahl salt-sensitive (SS) genetic background increases the renal expression of CYP4A protein and attenuates the development of hypertension. We now have preliminary data that transfer of chromosome 5 from the Brown Norwary (BN) rat onto the SS genetic background also opposes the development of hypertension in a SS.5BN consomic strain. These findings support our working hypothesis that a deficiency in the renal formation of 20-HETE contributes to the development of hypertension in SS rats. The goal of this project is to determine whether there is a sequence variant that reduces the activity or expression of one of the CYP4A genes in the kidney of SS rats and plays a causal role in the development of hypertension or if this pathway maybe secondarily involved because the expression of CYP4A isoforms are regulated by some other gene on chromosome 5.
The Specific Aims are: 1) to determine whether the antihypertensive and renoprotective effects of transfer of chromosome 5 from the BN rat into the SS genetic background is dependent on an increase in the renal expression of CYP4A protein and the production of 20-HETE;2) to determine if there is a sequence variant in one of the four CYP4A genes that reduces the expression or activity of these enzymes in the kidney of SS rats;and 3) to test if any of the sequence variants identified in the CYP4A genes contribute to the development of hypertension and renal disease in SS rats using transgenic techniques. The novel aspects of these studies are that they will employ unique chromosome 5 congenic and consomic strains of SS rats that we developed over the last 5 years, a new LC/MS/MS assay for measurement of 20-HETE, novel inhibitors of the synthesis and actions of 20-HETE, real time-PCR assays for measuring the expression of CYP4A isoforms and a new lentiviral strategy for creating transgenic strains of rats The proposed studies to determine if a genetic abnormality in the renal formation of 20-HETE contributes to the development of hypertension in SS rats by resetting the pressure-natriuretic relationship are especially unique and relevant, since a polymorphism in the CYP4A11 gene that reduces the formation of 20-HETE has recently been associated with elevated blood pressure in three independent human populations.(77,183,184) These studies will provide a new homologous animal model system to explore mechanisms to explain how a deficiency in the renal formation of 20-HETE could contribute to the development of salt-sensitive forms of hypertension in man. The results obtained may also spur the development of drugs that upregulate this pathway for the treatment of hypertension and renal disease.
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