Original Article

Arterial baroreflex function does not influence telomere length in kidney of rats

Xiao-fei Zhang, Rui-fang Yang, Jin Wang, Lei Zhao, Ling Li, Fu-ming Shen, Ding-feng Su

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the relationship between arterial baroreflex (ABR) function and telomere length in kidney of rats.
Methods: Stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR-SP) and sinoaortic denervated rats (SAD) were used as models with depressed arterial baroreflex. In the first experiments, SHR-SP rats were examined at the age of 24 weeks for both sexes and 40 weeks for female rats. In the second experiments, SAD rats were studied 4 and 35 weeks after SAD operation. Blood pressure was continuously recorded for 4 h in a conscious state. After the determination of baroreflex sensitivity (BRS), the terminal restriction fragment (TRF) of rat kidney was analyzed using Southern blot.
Results: The TRF length was found shorter in: a) male SHR-SP compared with age-matched female SHR-SP; b) female SHR-SP 40 weeks of age compared with 24 weeks of age; c) in rats 35 weeks after operation compared with rats 4 weeks post operation in both sham-operated and SAD rats.
Conclusion: In SHR-SP, the TRF length did not correlate with BRS. In addition, SAD did not affect TRF length at either 4 or 35 weeks post-surgery. It may be concluded that baroreflex function does not influence the terminal restriction fragment (TRF) length in rats.
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