Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 28, 2015; 21(16): 4817-4828
Published online Apr 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i16.4817
Murine study of portal hypertension associated endothelin-1 hypo-response
Nicholas Theodorakis, Mary Maluccio, Nicholas Skill
Nicholas Theodorakis, Mary Maluccio, Nicholas Skill, Department of Surgery, Division of Transplant Surgery, Indiana School of Medicine, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN 46202, United States
Author contributions: Theodorakis N and Skill N performed the research; Skill N and Maluccio M designed the research; Skill N and Maluccio M wrote the paper.
Supported by Indiana University department of surgery and Lilly INGEN research fund provided support for the Research performed in this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Nicholas Skill, PhD, Assistant Research Professor, Department of Surgery, Division of Transplant Surgery, Indiana School of Medicine, Indiana University, Walthur Cancer Research Building, Rm C519. 980 W. Walnut Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202, United States. nskill@iupui.edu
Telephone: +1-317-2744532 Fax: +1-317-2748046
Received: September 3, 2014
Peer-review started: September 4, 2014
First decision: October 14, 2014
Revised: November 3, 2014
Accepted: December 5, 2014
Article in press: December 8, 2014
Published online: April 28, 2015
Processing time: 236 Days and 8.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Portal hypertension (PHT) is a complication associated with vascular derangements in response to liver disease and fibrosis. Perturbations of nitric oxide (NO) and endothelin-1 are believed to be interrelated and play a key role in PHT vasculopathy. This study investigates the importance of NO biosynthesis in endothelin-1 vasoconstriction hypo-response seen in patients with PHT. PHT was induced in wild type, eNOS-/- and iNOS-/- mice by partial portal vein ligation (PVL) and endothelin-1 contractile response was determined. Endothelin-1 (ET-1) induced contraction was significantly reduced following PVL in all mouse groups. Aberrant ET-1 function associated with PHT is NO independent.