Abstract
Hypertension affects over 1 billion people worldwide and increases the risk for heart failure, stroke, and chronic kidney disease. Despite high prevalence and devastating impact, its etiology still remains poorly understood for most hypertensive cases. Rcn2, which encodes reticulocalbin 2, is a candidate gene for atherosclerosis that we have previously reported in mice. Here, we identified Rcn2 as a novel regulator of blood pressure in mice. Rcn2 was abundantly expressed in the endothelium and adventitia of normal arteries and was dramatically upregulated in the medial layer of the artery undergoing structural remodeling. Deletion of Rcn2 lowered basal blood pressure and attenuated ANG II-induced hypertension in C57BL/6 mice. siRNA knockdown of Rcn2 dramatically increased production of the nitric oxide (NO) breakdown products nitrite and nitrate by endothelial cells but not by smooth muscle cells. Isolated carotid arteries from Rcn2-/- mice showed an increased sensitivity to the ACh-induced NO-mediated relaxant response compared with arteries of Rcn2+/+ mice. Analysis of a recent meta-data set showed associations of genetic variants near RCN2 with blood pressure in humans. These data suggest that Rcn2 regulates blood pressure and contributes to hypertension through actions on endothelial NO synthase.