[Recent progress in vasopressin research on cardiovascular diseases]

Abstract

Arginine vasopressin (AVP) plays an important role in volume homeostasis and cardiovascular regulation. This review briefly describes recent clinical studies which evaluated the significance of AVP in cardiovascular diseases. Several AVP receptor antagonists, including tolvaptan and conivaptan, have shown promise in human trials for the treatment of heart failure. As plasma AVP concentrations are elevated in patients with heart failure in accordance with their severity, elevated AVP may contribute to their clinical syndrome of fluid retention and vasoconstriction. In some forms of hypertension, circulating AVP are also elevated; however, the precise role of AVP in the pathophysiology of hypertension is controversial. We performed a case-control study in a random sample of 620 rural residents and found an association between nonobese hypertension and -6951G/A single nucleotide polymorphism in the promoter region of the AVP V1a receptor gene. Our results suggest that AVP might contribute to the subdivision of human hypertension. Antiplatelet agents have been shown effective to prevent cardiovascular events. AVP has been known to stimulate platelet aggregation through V1a receptor. Genetic factors are thought to be involved in the heterogeneity of platelet activation. Some studies have been undertaken to identify genetic markers of platelet sensitivity to AVP.