Influence of shearing Stress to the
Expression of
Endothelin by Vascular Endothelial Cells
WANG Jian-Min, SHI Yong-De* and LIANG Zi-Jun
( Department of Biophysics, Shanghai Medical University, Shanghai
200032，China )
Abstract Using radioimmunoassay and
Northern blot, the differences in endothelin and its mRNA expression were
studied for cultured cerebral micro-vascular endothelial cells (from WKY and
SHR rats) which exposed to flow shear stress at 0, 0.5, 1, 2 Pa for 24 h. The
results showed that the endothelin and its mRNA expression of endothelial cells
from both WKY and SHR rats proportionally increased according to the shear
stress values at 0, 0.5 and 1 Pa, at 2 Pa, however the endothelin and its mRNA
expression did not increase further. When comparing both rat systems, the SHR’s
levels of endothelin and its mRNA expression were higher than WKY’s. The
results indicated that the levels of endothelin and its mRNA expression were
proportional to shear stress in 0-1 Pa in WKY and SHR rat systems and the
levels of endothelin and its mRNA of SHR system were higher than those of
WKY’s. Our results indicate that the vascular wall in SHR system may be more
contractile, less relaxative, with lower remodeling ability and thus more
easily to mediate atherosclerosis.
Key Words Endithelial cells； endothelin gene； shear stress； cerebral vascular
vessels；
hypertension
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