2023-10-31 19:15:44
High blood pressure is the main cardiovascular risk factor. Despite the wide range of effective drugs available, many patients fail to reduce their blood pressure to optimal levels, leaving a latent cardiovascular risk.
Various studies point to the immune system and the inflammatory response it triggers as key actors in hypertensive cardiovascular damage. Since current anti-inflammatory treatments are not suitable for treating hypertension, it is essential to develop new medications that counteract or mitigate this inflammatory reaction.
Now, researchers from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and the Network Biomedical Research Center for Cardiovascular Diseases (CIBERCV), in Spain, led by Dr. Ana M. Briones, have revealed that treatment with a pro-resolving lipid mediator , resolvin D2, protects against vascular and cardiac damage associated with high blood pressure.
“After tissue damage, immune system cells infiltrate the damaged area and promote the production of pro-inflammatory mediators such as cytokines. To prevent the inflammatory response from remaining excessively prolonged over time, different inflammation resolution pathways driven by specialized pro-resolving lipid mediators (SPMs) are activated, which finally restore the damaged tissue,” explains Ana B. García-Redondo.
“However,” adds the researcher, “if this resolution of inflammation fails, chronic inflammation occurs, leading to tissue damage observed in multiple pathologies.”
Three members of the team, in the laboratory. (Photo: A. Briones)
The results demonstrate that in high blood pressure there is an imbalance in the production of pro-resolving mediators, and that the administration of Resolvina D2 not only prevents but also repairs the cardiovascular damage associated with high blood pressure.
“The effects of RvD2 are due to its beneficial effects on vasodilatory mediators, decreased remodeling and fibrosis present in both the heart and vessels, less infiltration of immune system cells and reprogramming of immune and cardiovascular cells towards a reparative type” , concludes Lucía Serrano Díaz del Campo, the first signatory of the work.
The study was carried out with the collaboration of four groups from the CIBERCV at the UAM, the Ramón y Cajal Hospital, the Sant Pau Biomedical Research Institute, and the “Alberto Sols” Biomedical Research Institute, as well as with international collaborators from the Queen Mary University of London in the United Kingdom.
The study is titled “Resolvin D2 Attenuates Cardiovascular Damage in Angiotensin II-Induced Hypertension.” And it has been published in the academic journal Hypertension. (Source: UAM)
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