. Lack of activation of molecular forms of the BNP system in human grade 1 hypertension and relationship to cardiac hypertrophy. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 291: H1529 -H1535, 2006. First published April 28, 2006 doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00107.2006.-We evaluated relationships among two circulating molecular forms of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP32 and NT-proBNP), severity of hypertension (HTN), and cardiac hypertrophy in subjects with mild, moderate, and severe HTN. We prospectively studied 78 patients (43 males; mean age 51.4 Ϯ 11 yr) with essential HTN and 28 age-and sex-matched controls. BNP32 and NT-proBNP were measured by radioimmunoassay. In grade 1 HTN, BNP32 was not elevated and NT-proBNP was reduced (P ϭ 0.030) compared with controls. However, log-transformed values of BNP32 and NT-proBNP were both increased with severity of HTN from grade 1 to 3 (P Ͻ0.0001 and P ϭ 0.003, respectively). By multivariate analysis, log BNP32 was independently predicted by age ( ϭ 0.210, P ϭ 0.026) and HTN grade ( ϭ 0.274, P ϭ 0.004), whereas log NT-proBNP was independently predicted by sex ( ϭ 0.235, P ϭ 0.012) and HTN grade ( ϭ 0.218, P ϭ 0.0023). Two forms of BNP were measured in normal subjects and patients with essential HTN. In grade 1 HTN, BNP32 was unchanged and NTproBNP was significantly reduced compared with controls. As severity increased in humans with grade 1 to 3 HTN, both BNP32 and NT-proBNP levels were increased while not being affected by the presence of left ventricular hypertrophy. The lack of activation of BNP32 together with the reduction of NT-proBNP in grade 1 HTN may represent an impaired response of the BNP system in the early phase of HTN. The later activation of both forms of BNP may be a late compensatory effect, because it correlates with severity of HTN rather than cardiac hypertrophy/remodeling. natriuretic peptide; brain natriuretic peptide; amino-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide; left ventricular hypertrophy BRAIN NATRIURETIC PEPTIDE (BNP) is synthesized in cardiac myocytes as the precursor proBNP, a 108-amino acid peptide (4, 27, 33), and is converted to biologically active peptide BNP32 via a proteolytic cleavage by corin, a type II transmembrane cardiac serine protease (22,38,39). BNP is present in the circulation in two different forms, the biologically active BNP32 that elicits different beneficial cardiorenal and hormonal actions (1,5,8,11,25,26,40) and the amino-terminal portion of BNP (NT-proBNP) that consists of 76 amino acids.In congestive heart failure (CHF) as well as in hypertension (HTN), ventricular cardiomyocytes are progressively recruited to synthesize BNP (24). Whereas initially a successful defensive endocrine response by the heart to preserve cardiorenal homeostasis might occur, a hyporesponsiveness to cardiac peptides, which might contribute in turn to the progression of hypertension, could follow later. Although BNP32 has emerged as an important diagnostic and prognostic biomarker of CHF (1, 12, 37), its levels are markedly variable in HTN. Therefore, its b...