Time course of serum levels of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) and soluble LIF receptor (sLIF-R) in development of stage II essential hypertension

Abstract

Aim. To study levels of serum LIF and sLIF-R and their correlations with hemodynamic parameters (heart rate, systolic BP, diastolic BP, pulse pressure, central BP, mean BP, stroke volume, total peripheral resistance, and pulse wave velocity) and vasoactive substances (AT II, ET-1, NO, ADMA, SDMA, eNOS, iNOS, NT-proCNP, and NT-proBNP) in patients with stage II essential arterial hypertension (EAH). Methods. Serum levels of LIF and sLIF-R/gp190 were measured using ELISA in 180 patients with stage II EAH. Results: Patients with EAH II (with or without antihypertensive therapy) had higher serum levels of LIF (7.54 (2.8) pg/ml and 7.5 (2.1) pg/ml, respectively) compared to healthy individuals (1.25 (0.5) pg/ml), p<0.001. Patients not receiving a therapy had higher serum levels of sLIF-R (5800 (1470 pg/ml) than patients receiving antihypertensive drugs (4100 (1380) pg/ml, p<0.001) and healthy individual (3800 (1100) pg/ml, p<0.001). In patients with EAH, sLIF-R levels higher than 4800 pg/ml correlated with increases in iNOS, NT-proBNP, ADMA, and SDMA (r = 0.5-0.8, p<0.05-0.001) and decreases in eNOS (r = -0.56-0.86, p<0.05-0.001), which corresponded to disease progression. LIF did not show any significant correlations with these vasoactive substances, which suggested that sLIF-R exerted its own pathogenetic effects besides antagonizing LIF. Generally, this trend was typical for patients with EAH (II stage) without antihypertensive therapy.