Does intracellular free-calcium concentration in platelets correlate with blood pressure in hypertensive and normotensive subjects, and does it decrease with antihypertensive therapy?
Intracellular free-calcium concentration in platelets strongly correlates with blood pressure and decreases with antihypertensive therapy, suggesting shared regulatory mechanisms.
Intracellular free calcium has been implicated in vascular smooth-muscle contraction and in the pathophysiology of essential hypertension. We studied free-calcium levels in blood platelets, which have many features in common with vascular smooth-muscle cells. With use of an intracellularly trapped fluorescent dye, the free-calcium concentration in platelets was found to be elevated in 9 patients with borderline hypertension and 45 patients with established essential hypertension, who were compared with 38 normotensive subjects. There was a close correlation between the free-calcium level and both systolic and diastolic blood pressure (n = 92; r = 0.883 for systolic pressure and 0.931 for diastolic pressure; P less than 0.001 for both). Antihypertensive treatment with calcium-entry blockers (n = 15), beta-adrenoceptor blockers (n = 12), or a diuretic (n = 6) resulted in a reduction in free calcium, and this correlated with the fall in blood pressure (P less than 0.001). The intracellular free-calcium concentration in platelets may be determined by the same humoral or pharmacologic factors that determine the height of blood pressure.
Erné et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: