Studies On Erythrocytic Antihypertensive Factor

Wright and McCumbee has reported that the erythrocytes of spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) contains a hypertensive factor (HF) and a antihypertensive factor (AHF). HF has been identified as a low Molecular weight (700-800 Da) peptide. Its amino acid composition is as follows: Asp/Asn (1.41), Ser (1.02). Glu/Gln (1.00) and Gly (2.00). HF could elevate theblood pressure and enhanced the Ca influx of vascular smooth muscle cell in normotensive rats, indicating that it may be aendogenous Ca channel agonist. On the contrary, the nature and action of AHF still remained to be clarified. We suppose that the research on AHF is not only important in elaborating on the mechanism of hypertension but also possibly available in prevention and treatment of hypertension. In this work, we studied systematically the physical and chemical properties, the physiological functions and the antihypertensive mechanism of AHF at body, organ, cellular and molecular levels. The main results are as follows:(1) By using the different biochemical techniques including heat-treatment, ultrafiltration and Sephadex gel filtration chromatography et al, we partially purified AHF from erythrocytes.