This Article Free upon publication Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 52/5/777    most recent HYPERTENSIONAHA.107.092858v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Cowley, A. W. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Cowley, A. W., Jr Related Collections Animal models of human disease Hypertension - basic studies Other etiology

(Hypertension. 2008;52:777.)
© 2008 American Heart Association, Inc.

Brief Reviews

Renal Medullary Oxidative Stress, Pressure-Natriuresis, and Hypertension

From the Department of Physiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Correspondence to Allen W. Cowley Jr, PhD, Department of Physiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Rd, Milwaukee, WI 53226. E-mail cowley@mcw.edu

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	Introduction

 
Renal dysfunction has long been a recognized feature of essential hypertension as first suggested by Dr Richard Bright’s mid-19th century observations of small, shrunken, scarred kidneys associated with cardiac hypertrophy and the seminal studies in the 1930s by Dr Harry Goldblatt directly linking the kidney to chronic hypertension. Attention was originally and appropriately focused on the renal cortex, which represents more than 90% of the renal mass, is the site of glomerular filtration, and receives more than 95% or renal blood flow. Reductions of glomerular filtration and the morphological changes within cortical structures such as vascular medial wall hypertrophy, hyperplasia, and fibrinoid necrosis of the glomeruli have been well described,¹ especially in patients with chronic hypertension and glomerulosclerosis.

By comparison, interest in the involvement of the renal medulla in the initiation and development of hypertension evolved much later and was stimulated by two different observations. First, studies in the 1960s by Dr Eric Muirhead showed that the medullary interstitial cells produced an antihypertensive principle that he called medullipin.² Second, studies by our own group in the mid-1980s reported that renal medullary blood flow (MBF) was importantly linked to the phenomena of pressure-natriuresis and diuresis and that MBF was reduced in several forms of experimental hypertension.^3,4

Before these studies, the physiological importance of the renal medullary circulation was focused on the unique countercurrent structure of the vasa recta vessels as first appreciated in the 1950s by Hargitay and Kuhn⁵ and Wirz et al,⁶ who introduced the modern concept of the urinary . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Liang, Y. Liu, D. Mladinov, A. W. Cowley Jr., H. Trivedi, Y. Fang, X. Xu, X. Ding, and Z. Tian MicroRNA: a new frontier in kidney and blood pressure research Am J Physiol Renal Physiol, September 1, 2009; 297(3): F553 - F558. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				B.#3.;e. B\#261;dzy\#324;ska and J. Sadowski Differential action of bradykinin on intrarenal regional perfusion in the rat: waning effect in the cortex and major impact in the medulla J. Physiol., August 1, 2009; 587(15): 3943 - 3953. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				Z. Tian, Y. Liu, K. Usa, D. Mladinov, Y. Fang, X. Ding, A. S. Greene, A. W. Cowley Jr, and M. Liang Novel Role of Fumarate Metabolism in Dahl-Salt Sensitive Hypertension Hypertension, August 1, 2009; 54(2): 255 - 260. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				P. M. O'Connor, L. Lu, M. Liang, and A. W. Cowley Jr A Novel Amiloride-Sensitive H+ Transport Pathway Mediates Enhanced Superoxide Production in Thick Ascending Limb of Salt-Sensitive Rats, Not Na+/H+ Exchange Hypertension, August 1, 2009; 54(2): 248 - 254. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. Jin, C. Hu, A. Polichnowski, T. Mori, M. Skelton, S. Ito, and A. W. Cowley Jr Effects of Renal Perfusion Pressure on Renal Medullary Hydrogen Peroxide and Nitric Oxide Production Hypertension, June 1, 2009; 53(6): 1048 - 1053. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]