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pubmed:abstractText |
The pathogenic mechanisms underlying the increase in peripheral resistance and the contraction of smooth muscular fibre cells in essential hypertension are not yet clearly understood. However, it is now known that immune system activation plays a role in the pathogenesis of some forms of arterial hypertension, and recent data show that the Ca2+ influx in some cells (i.e. red blood cells, leukocytes, platelets, smooth muscular fibre cells) is increased in subjects with essential hypertension, thus revealing a possible alteration in cellular membrane. The end-points of this study were therefore to ascertain whether red blood cells used as a cellular membrane model have a greater Ca2+ dependent K+ flow (Gardos effect) in hypertensive patients than in normotensive controls, to point out a different regulation of ionic channels, and whether IL-8 and the adhesion molecule ICAM-1 influence the membranous outflow.
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