Associations of tea consumption with blood pressure progression and hypertension incidence.

BACKGROUND: Association between tea consumption and incident hypertension remains uncertain. This study conducted to examine the health effects of tea consumption on blood pressure progression and hypertension incidence. METHODS: A population-based cohort of 38,913 Chinese participants without hypertension at baseline were included in the current study. Information on tea consumption was collected through standardized questionnaires. Associations of tea consumption with blood pressure progression and incident hypertension were analyzed using logistic regression models and Cox proportional hazards regression models, respectively. RESULTS: During a median follow-up of 5.9 years, 17,657 individuals had experienced progression to a higher blood pressure stage and 5,935 individuals had developed hypertension. In multivariate analyses, habitual tea drinkers (≥ 3 times/week for at least six months) had a 17% lower risk for blood pressure progression [odds ratio (OR) = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.79-0.88] and a 14% decreased risk for incident hypertension [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.86, 95% CI: 0.80-0.91] compared with non-habitual tea drinkers. Individuals in different baseline blood pressure groups could obtain similar benefit from habitual tea drinking. In terms of tea consumption amount, an inverse, linear dose-response relation between monthly consumption of tea leaves and risk of blood pressure progression was observed, while the risk of incident hypertension did not reduce further after consuming around 100 g of tea leaves per month. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated that habitual tea consumption could provide preventive effect against blood pressure progression and hypertension incidence.

Association of the apolipoprotein B gene polymorphisms with essential hypertension in Northern Chinese Han population.

OBJECTIVE: To study the association of the apolipoprotein B gene polymorphisms with essential hypertension in Northern Chinese Han population. METHODS: XbaI and EcoRI polymorphisms of the apolipoprotein B (APOB) gene were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment-length polymorphism (RFLP) method in 503 unrelated hypertensive patients and 490 healthy controls recruited from international collaborative study of cardiovascular disease in Asia (InterAsia). RESULTS: The difference in the genotypic distributions could be neglected across the groups. The prevalence of X+ allele in healthy controls (4.8%) was less frequent in Chinese, and there was no significant difference in the frequency of the X+ allele between cases (5.7%) and controls (P = 0.38). The observed E- allele frequencies were closely similar among groups (5.9% in cases vs 5.0% in controls, P = 0.39). Logitstic regression analyses revealed that the lack of association still persisted after adjustment of other environmental factors. Haplotype analysis showed that X-E+ was most frequent and no haplotype could significantly contribute to essential hypertension. CONCLUSION: The APOB gene XbaI and EcoRI polymorphisms are not associated with essential hypertension in the Northern Chinese Han population. Future studies on single nucleotide polymorphisms in larger samples are needed to further investigate the possible contribution of the APOB gene to essential hypertension.

Elevated plasma miRNA-122, -140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 during early period of acute coronary syndrome are derived from peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

OBJECTIVE: Our previous study has found that circulating microRNA (miRNA, or miR) -122, -140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 are significantly elevated during early stage of acute coronary syndrome (ACS). This study was conducted to determine the origin of these elevated plasma miRNAs in ACS. METHODS: qRT-PCR was performed to detect the expression profiles of these 5 miRNAs in liver, spleen, lung, kidney, brain, skeletal muscles, and heart. To determine their origins, these miRNAs were detected in myocardium of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and as well in platelets and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs, including monocytes, circulating endothelial cells (CECs) and lymphocytes) of the AMI pigs and ACS patients. RESULTS: MiR-122 was specifically expressed in liver, and miR-140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 were highly expressed in heart. Compared with the sham pigs, miR-122 was highly expressed in the border zone of the ischemic myocardium in the AMI pigs without ventricular fibrillation (P < 0.01), miR-122 and -720 were decreased in platelets of the AMI pigs, and miR-122, -140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 were increased in PBMCs of the AMI pigs (all P < 0.05). Compared with the non-ACS patients, platelets miR-720 was decreased and PBMCs miR-122, -140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 were increased in the ACS patients (all P < 0.01). Furthermore, PBMCs miR-122, -720, and -3149 were increased in the AMI patients compared with the unstable angina (UA) patients (all P < 0.05). Further origin identification revealed that the expression levels of miR-122 in CECs and lymphocytes, miR-140-3p and -2861 in monocytes and CECs, miR-720 in monocytes, and miR-3149 in CECs were greatly up-regulated in the ACS patients compared with the non-ACS patients, and were higher as well in the AMI patients than that in the UA patients except for the miR-122 in CECs (all P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The elevated plasma miR-122, -140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 in the ACS patients were mainly originated from CECs and monocytes.

[Establishment and application of a RT-PCR system for quantifying mRNA of 4 hsp genes in human cells].

OBJECTIVE: To establish a RT-PCR system for detecting mRNA expression level of 4 hsp genes in human cells. METHODS: RT-PCR system was established with gene cloning, gene recombination, in vitro transcription and RT-PCR techniques; The detection of expression level of 4 hsp genes in SW13 cell was carried out with this system. RESULTS: In SW13 cell, hsp70 and hsp90 alpha were typical heat shock induced genes, while hsp60 and hsp90 beta were efficiently expressed and further induced by heat-shock to various extent. CONCLUSIONS: In our hands novel RT-PCR system can be used to detect mRNA expression level of 4 human hsp genes.

A negative regulatory element-dependent inhibitory role of ITF2B on IL-2 receptor alpha gene.

Despite the fact that the negative regulatory element (NRE) within the upstream regulatory region of human IL-2 receptor alpha (IL-2Ralpha) gene has been identified two decades ago, mechanisms of the NRE function on the gene are hitherto unknown. In this paper, we report for the first time that the immunoglobulin transcription factor 2B (ITF2B) encoded by transcription factor 4 (TCF4) gene is a NRE binding protein. The full-length TCF4 cDNA clone was obtained from a HTLV-1 transformed human peripheral T cell MACHERMAKER cDNA library with NRE as the bait in yeast one-hybrid system. The NRE binding ability of ITF2B was further confirmed in chromatin-immunoprecipitation assay. Competitive RT-PCR-based promoter activity assay showed that over-expression of ITF2B protein inhibited the expression of IL-2Ralpha gene in Jurkat cells in an NRE-dependent manner. The function of ITF2B on the inhibition of both the IL-2Ralpha and the 5'LTR activity of HIV-1 shed light on the essence of NRE binding protein as a potential target for immune therapy and treatment in AIDS patients.