Blood Pressure Variability Activates Cardiac Mineralocorticoid Receptor and Induces Cardiac Remodeling in Hypertensive Rats

BACKGROUND: Hypertensive patients with large blood pressure variability (BPV) have aggravated target organ damage. Because the aldosterone/mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) system is a possible mechanism of hypertensive organ damage, we investigated in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) whether a specific MR blocker, eplerenone, would prevent BPV-induced aggravation of hypertensive cardiac remodeling. METHODS AND RESULTS: A rat model of a combination of hypertension and large BPV was created by performing bilateral sinoaortic denervation (SAD) in SHRs. SAD increased BPV without changing mean BP. SAD induced perivascular macrophage infiltration and aggravated myocardial fibrosis and cardiac hypertrophy, resulting in LV systolic dysfunction. Immunohistostaining revealed SAD-induced translocation of MRs into the nuclei (ie, MR activation) of the intramyocardial arterial medial cells and cardiac myocytes. SAD increased phosphorylation of p21-activated kinase1 (PAK1), a regulator of MR nuclear translocation. Chronic administration of a subdepressor dose of eplerenone prevented MR translocation, macrophage infiltration, myocardial fibrosis, cardiac hypertrophy, and LV dysfunction, while not affecting BPV. Circulating levels of aldosterone and cortisol were not changed by SAD. CONCLUSIONS: Eplerenone inhibited the aggravation of cardiac inflammation and hypertensive cardiac remodeling, and thereby prevented progression of LV dysfunction in SHRs with large BPV. This suggests that the PAK1-MR pathway plays a role in cardiac inflammation and remodeling induced by large BPV superimposed on hypertension, independent of circulating aldosterone.