Medical Biochemistry Commons^™

Central Role For The Cardiotonic Steroid Marinobufagenin In The Pathogenesis Of Experimental Uremic Cardiomyopathy, David Kennedy, Sandeep Vetteth, Sankaridrug Periyasamy, Mohamed Kanj, Larisa Fedorova, Samer Khouri, M. Kahaleh, Zijian Xie, Deepak Malhotra, Nikolai Kolodkin, Edward Lakatta, Olga Fedorova, Alexei Bagrov, Joseph Shapiro

Zijian Xie

Patients with chronic renal failure develop a “uremic” cardiomyopathy characterized by diastolic dysfunction, cardiac hypertrophy, and systemic oxidant stress. Patients with chronic renal failure are also known to have increases in the circulating concentrations of the cardiotonic steroid marinobufagenin (MBG). On this background, we hypothesized that elevations in circulating MBG may be involved in the cardiomyopathy. First, we observed that administration of MBG (10 g/kg per day) for 4 weeks caused comparable increases in plasma MBG as partial nephrectomy at 4 weeks. MBG infusion caused increases in conscious blood pressure, cardiac weight, and the time constant for left ventricular relaxation …