Changes in L-arginine/NO pathway of erythrocytes in patients with essential hypertension / 中国病理生理杂志

AIM: To investigate the changes of L-arginine/nitric oxide(L-Arg/NO) pathway and the characteristics of L-Arg transport in erythrocytes (RBC) in patients with essential hypertension(EH). METHODS: 12 EH patients were studied with 10 normotensive people as control. The nitric oxide (NO) production was assayed by measuring the nitrite in medium using Greiss reaction. NO synthase activity was measured according to the method described by Ghigo. In order to achieve zero-trans condition, erythrocytes were incubated at 37℃ for 3 h and then L- Arg transport of RBC were determined by measuring the influx of radiolabelled L-arginine by Deliconstantins described method.RESULTS: In EH patients, NO production was lower than that in control (P