Journal article

Localization of relaxin receptors in arteries and veins, and region-specific increases in compliance and bradykinin-mediated relaxation after in vivo serelaxin treatment

M Jelinic, CH Leo, ED Post Uiterweer, SL Sandow, JH Gooi, ME Wlodek, KP Conrad, H Parkington, M Tare, LJ Parry

FASEB Journal | Published : 2014

Abstract

Relaxin is a potent vasodilator of small resistance arteries and modifies arterial compliance in some systemic vascular beds, yet receptors for relaxin, such as RXFP1, have only been localized to vascular smooth muscle. This study first aimed to localize RXFP1 in rat arteries and veins from different organ beds and determine whether receptors are present in endothelial cells. We then tested the hypothesis that region-specific vascular effects of relaxin may be influenced by the cellular localization of RXFP1 within different blood vessels. The aorta, vena cava, mesenteric artery, and vein had significantly higher (P<0.05) RXFP1 immunostaining in endothelial cells compared with vascular smoot..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute


Funding Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Dennis Stewart, the coordinator of the research partnership (Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland) for helpful advice with the experimental design and critical analysis of the data. The authors also thank Dr. Elaine Unemori for helpful suggestions and manuscript review. The authors are grateful to Dr. Jill Verlander, Professor John Hutson, and Dr. Marc Mazzuca for their valuable contributions to this work, and Professor O. David Sherwood (University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA) for his generous gift of the RXFP1 antibody. The authors disclose that this project was partially funded by Novartis, which also provided the serelaxin, as conditions of an Australian Research Council Linkage grant. The research was funded by Australian Research Council Linkage grant LP110200543 (L.J.P., M. T., H. C. P., and M. E. W.), U.S. National Institutes of Health grant HL067937 (K. P. C. and L.J.P.) and an Australian and New Zealand Medical Research and Technology in Victoria grant (L.J.P.). M.J. received an Australian Postgraduate Award.