Cardiovascular function and structure are preserved despite induced ablation of BMP1-related proteinases.

Introduction: Bone morphogenetic protein 1 (BMP1) is part of an extracellular metalloproteinase family that biosynthetically processes procollagen molecules. BMP1- and tolloid-like (TLL1) proteinases mediate the cleavage of carboxyl peptides from procollagen molecules, which is a crucial step in fibrillar collagen synthesis. Ablating the genes that encode BMP1-related proteinases ( and ) post-natally results in brittle bones, periodontal defects, and thin skin in conditional knockout (BT) mice.

Pulmonary arterial strain- and remodeling-induced stiffening are differentiated in a chronic model of pulmonary hypertension.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a debilitating vascular disease that leads to pulmonary artery (PA) stiffening, which is a predictor of patient mortality. During PH development, PA stiffening adversely affects right ventricular function. PA stiffening has been investigated through the arterial nonlinear elastic response during mechanical testing using a canine PH model.

Limiting collagen turnover via collagenase-resistance attenuates right ventricular dysfunction and fibrosis in pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a severe form of pulmonary hypertension in which right ventricular (RV) afterload is increased and death typically occurs due to decompensated RV hypertrophy and failure. Collagen accumulation has been implicated in pulmonary artery remodeling, but how it affects RV performance remains unclear. Here, we sought to identify the role of collagen turnover, defined as the balance between collagen synthesis and degradation, in RV structure and function in PAH To do so, we exposed mutant (Col1a1(R/R)) mice, in which collagen type I degradation is impaired such that collagen turnover is reduced, and wild-type (Col1a1(+/+)) littermates to 14 days of chronic hypoxia combined with SUGEN treatment (HySu) to recapitulate characteristics of clinical PAH RV structure and function were measured by echocardiography, RV catheterization, and histology.

Mitochondria DNA mutations cause sex-dependent development of hypertension and alterations in cardiovascular function.

Aging is associated with conduit artery stiffening that is a risk factor for and can precede hypertension and ventricular dysfunction. Increases in mitochondria DNA (mtDNA) frequency have been correlated with aging. Mice with a mutation in the encoding domain (D257A) of a proof-reading deficient version of mtDNA polymerase-γ (POLG) have musculoskeletal features of premature aging and a shortened lifespan.