Effect of relaxin on cardiac hypertrophy, BNP and CTGF expression.

Treatment with relaxin did not attenuate the development of cardiac hypertrophy (A) expressed as ratio of heart weight to body weight. Cardiac hypertrophy indices of vehicle-treated and treated dTGR rats were significantly higher compared with nontransgenic SD rats. With RT-PCR, we examined BNP (B) and CTGF (C) mRNA expression in the heart. BNP and CTGF mRNA expression was significant higher in vehicle-treated dTGR compared to SD rats. There were no differences in mRNA expression between untreated and relaxin-treated dTGRs. mRNA levels of the target genes were normalized for the housekeeping gene 18S. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM of at least 5 animals per group.