Oxytocin decreases diurnal and nocturnal arterial blood pressure in the conscious unrestrained spontaneously hypertensive rat.

In this study, we assessed the effects of oxytocin (OT) on mean arterial blood pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR), and locomotor activity (LA) in male spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR) and Sprague-Dawley (SDR) controls using telemetry. OT was given by intravenous injections of 0.1, 0.

Post-weaning high-fat diet accelerates kidney injury, but not hypertension programmed by maternal diabetes.

Background: The aim of this study was to establish the underlying mechanisms by which a post-weaning high-fat diet (HFD) accelerates the perinatal programming of kidney injury occurring in the offspring of diabetic mothers.

Methods: Male mice, offspring of nondiabetic and diabetic dams were fed with normal diet (ND) or HFD from 4 to 20 wk of age. Rat renal proximal tubular cells were used in vitro.

Maternal diabetes modulates kidney formation in murine progeny: the role of hedgehog interacting protein (HHIP).

Aims/hypothesis: We hypothesised that maternal diabetes impairs kidney formation in offspring via augmented expression of hedgehog interacting protein (HHIP). Our gene-array results were performed in neonatal kidneys from our murine model of maternal diabetes and indicated that Hhip expression was significantly modulated by maternal diabetes.

Methods: We systematically examined the functional role of HHIP in kidney formation in our murine maternal diabetes model and elucidated the potential mechanisms related to dysnephrogenesis in vitro.