Abstract. Decreased arterial compliance is one of the earliest detectable manifestations of adverse structural and functional changes within the vessel wall in hypertension. The proteomic approach is a powerful technique to analyze a complex mixture of proteins in various settings. Physical activity level was negatively associated with blood pressure. Sixteen 4-week-old male spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and 16 Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats were randomly divided into four groups: i) SHR exercise group, ii) SHR rest group, iii) WKY exercise group and iv) WKY rest group. In the SHR and WKY exercise groups, rats were treated with a 6-week load-free swimming protocol (1 h/day, 5 days/week). The blood pressure of the rats was tested by the CODA TM2 single non-invasive blood pressure measurement appliance. After the 6-week swimming protocol, the total aorta excluding abdominal aorta was extracted. The proteins were separated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and identified via LC-mass spectrometry (MS)/MS. After 6-week load-free swimming, blood pressure decreased in the SHRs. Compared with sedentary SHRs, 11 spots on the 2D-gel showed a significant difference in exercised SHRs. Nine of these were chosen for further identification. There were 5 upregulated proteins (long-chain specific acyl-CoA dehydrogenase, heat shock protein β-1, isocitrate dehydrogenase subunit α, actin, α cardiac muscle 1 preprotein and calmodulin isoform 2) and 4 downregulated proteins (adipocyte-type fatty acid-binding protein, tubulin β-2C chain, 78 kDa glucose-regulated protein precursor and mimecan). Proteomics is an effective method to identify the target proteins of exercise intervention for hypertension.
IntroductionHypertension is the most frequent chronic disease in the developed world. It is a multisystemic disease that affects the heart and kidneys among other organs. The overall functional, structural and biochemical alterations in vasculature have been extensively studied during hypertension, but the molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Decreased arterial compliance is one of the earliest detectable manifestations of adverse structural and functional changes within the vessel wall (1). It has been shown that the proteomic approach is a useful technique to analyze a complex mixture of proteins in various settings, usually by combining two-dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry (MS) (2). Bian et al (3) recently analyzed the proteome of aorta from spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). They found that SHR showed a significant alteration in the aortic wall protein profile compared with normal rats.Exercise is a key antihypertensive therapy. It is reported that the physical activity level was negatively associated with blood pressure. In addition, the blood pressure can be decreased with long-term physical activity. Blood pressure of SHRs undergoing the physical activity protocol was lower than that of the normal SHRs. The functional and structural alterations in vasculature occurred in hypertensives following exercise t...