Recent evidence indicates a crucial role for G protein-coupled estrogen receptor 1 (GPER1) in the maintenance of cardiovascular and kidney health in females. The current study tested whether GPER1 activation ameliorates hypertension and kidney damage in female Dahl salt-sensitive (SS) rats fed a high-salt (HS) diet. Adult female rats were implanted with telemetry transmitters for monitoring blood pressure and osmotic minipumps releasing G1 (selective GPER1 agonist, 400 μg/kg/day, intraperitoneal) or vehicle. Two weeks after pump implantation, rats were shifted from a normal salt diet (NS, 0.4% NaCl) to a matched HS diet (4.0% NaCl) for 2 weeks. 24-hour urine samples were collected during both diet periods and urinary markers of kidney injury were assessed. Histological assessment of kidney injury was conducted after the 2-week HS diet period. Compared with values during the NS diet, 24-hour mean arterial pressure markedly increased in response to HS, reaching similar values in vehicle-treated and G1-treated rats. HS also significantly increased urinary excretion of protein, albumin, nephrin (podocyte damage marker) and KIM-1 (proximal tubule injury marker) in vehicle-treated rats. Importantly, G1 treatment prevented the HS-induced proteinuria, albuminuria and increase in KIM-1 excretion but not nephrinuria. Histological analysis revealed that HS-induced glomerular damage did not differ between groups. However, G1 treatment preserved proximal tubule brush border integrity in HS-fed rats. Collectively, our data suggest that GPER1 activation protects against HS-induced proteinuria and albuminuria in female Dahl SS rats by preserving proximal tubule brush border integrity in a blood pressure-independent manner.

A Mobil Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a wireless multi-hop network with various mobile, self-organized and wireless infrastructure nodes. MANET characteristics such as openness restricted resources and decentralization impact node efficiency and made them easy to be affected by various security attacks, especially Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The goal of this research is to implement a simulation model called DDoS Attack Simulation Model (DDoSM) in Network Simulator 2(NS-2) and to examine the effect of DDoS Attack on various routing protocol types in MANET namely: Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP), Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) protocol and Location-Aided Routing (LAR) protocol. The introduced model uses the NS-2 simulator to apply DDoS on the three chosen routing protocols. In terms of throughput and end-to-end latency under the consequences of the attack, the performance of three routings protocols was analyzed.

Aromatase is a monooxygenase that catalyzes the rate-limiting step of estrogen biosynthesis from androgens. Aromatase inhibitors are widely used for treatment of patients with breast cancer. However, the effects of aromatase inhibitors on cardiovascular and renal health in females are understudied. Given that estrogen is protective against cardiovascular and kidney diseases, we hypothesized that aromatase inhibition elevates blood pressure and induces kidney injury in female Sprague Dawley rats. Twelve-week-old female rats were implanted with radio-telemetry transmitters to continuously monitor blood pressure. After baseline blood pressure recording, rats were randomly assigned to treatment with the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole (ASZ) or vehicle (Veh) in drinking water. Twenty days after treatment initiation, rats were shifted from a normal-salt (NS) to a high-salt diet (HS) for an additional 40 days. Rats were euthanized 60 days after treatment initiation. Body weight increased in both groups over the study period but the increase was greater in the ASZ-treated group. Mean arterial pressure increased in ASZ-treated rats during the NS and the HS diet phases but remained unchanged in Veh-treated rats. In addition, urinary excretion of albumin and kidney injury marker-1 and plasma urea were increased in response to aromatase inhibition. Furthermore, histological assessment revealed that ASZ treatment elevated renal tubular injury and proximal tubular brush border loss. In conclusion, chronic aromatase inhibition in vivo with ASZ increases blood pressure and markers of renal proximal tubular injury in female Sprague Dawley rats, suggesting an important role for aromatization in the maintenance cardiovascular and renal health in females.

Demographic studies reveal lower prevalence of hypertension among premenopausal females compared to age-matched males. The kidney plays a central role in the maintenance of sodium (Na+) homeostasis and consequently blood pressure. Renal endothelin-1 (ET-1) is a pro-natriuretic peptide that contributes to sex differences in blood pressure regulation and Na+ homeostasis. We recently showed that activation of renal medullary G protein-coupled estrogen receptor 1 (GPER1) promotes ET-1-dependent natriuresis in female, but not male, rats. We hypothesized that GPER1 upregulates the renal ET-1 signaling system in females, but not males. To test our hypothesis, we determined the effect of GPER1 deletion on ET-1 and its downstream effectors in the renal cortex, outer and inner medulla obtained from 12–16-week-old female and male mice. GPER1 knockout (KO) mice and wildtype (WT) littermates were implanted with telemetry transmitters for blood pressure assessment, and we used metabolic cages to determine urinary Na+ excretion. GPER1 deletion did not significantly affect 24-h mean arterial pressure (MAP) nor urinary Na+ excretion. However, GPER1 deletion decreased urinary ET-1 excretion in females but not males. Of note, female WT mice had greater urinary ET-1 excretion than male WT littermates, whereas no sex differences were observed in GPER1 KO mice. GPER1 deletion increased inner medullary ET-1 peptide content in both sexes but increased outer medullary ET-1 content in females only. Cortical ET-1 content increased in response to GPER1 deletion in both sexes. Furthermore, GPER1 deletion notably increased inner medullary ET receptor A (ETA) and decreased outer medullary ET receptor B (ETB) mRNA expression in male, but not female, mice. We conclude that GPER1 is required for greater ET-1 excretion in females. Our data suggest that GPER1 is an upstream regulator of renal medullary ET-1 production and ET receptor expression in a sex-specific manner. Overall, our study identifies the role of GPER1 as a sex-specific upstream regulator of the renal ET-1 system.