Published online Oct 26, 2019. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v11.i10.236
Peer-review started: February 12, 2019
First decision: April 11, 2019
Revised: August 31, 2019
Accepted: September 15, 2019
Article in press: September 15, 2019
Published online: October 26, 2019
Processing time: 257 Days and 18.1 Hours
The prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, especially heart failure, continues to rise worldwide. In heart failure, increasing levels of circulating atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) are associated with worsening heart failure and poor prognosis.
ANP and BNP play an important role in homeostasis, but trials with BNP and ANP infusion showed disappointing results for unknown reasons.
The aim of this study was to evaluate whether BNP acts as a partial agonist and inhibits the effect of ANP.
In this study, the effect of natriuretic peptides (ANP and BNP) on human pulmonary arteries was evaluated by cumulative addition to the myograph.
Both ANP and BNP act as pulmonary vasodilators, although ANP was found to be more potent and efficacious than BNP. Also, the addition of BNP reduced the efficacy of ANP.
The study confirms that BNP inhibits the effects of ANP, and acts as a partial agonist. These findings also explained the disappointing results associated with the ANP and BNP infusion trials.
Further studies are needed to validate the results of this study, and to evaluate the possibility of the clinical beneficial role of BNP antagonists for heart failure treatment.