Source:- British Heart Foundation
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have figured out a medical mystery that has been around for more than 70 years. Hydralazine, one of the first vasodilators used in clinical practice, has been an important treatment for severe high blood pressure for a long time and is still the first-line treatment for preeclampsia Blood Pressure Drug. Even though it is widely used, scientists still don't know how it works at the molecular level, which is a big gap in our knowledge.
Science Advances has published a new study that gives the first clear explanation of how hydralazine works in the body. The study also finds an unexpected link between brain cancer and high blood pressure disorders, which could lead to safer and more targeted treatments.
Kyosuke Shishikura, a physician scientist at the University of Pennsylvania,says that hydralazine comes from what he calls the "pre-target" era of Blood Pressure Drug discovery. Back then, doctors often figured out what medicines to give patients based on how they worked, not on a deep understanding of the biological pathways involved. Hydralazine is still one of the main treatments for pregnant women with dangerously high blood pressure. Preeclampsia causes a lot of deaths in pregnant women around the world, and the drug has saved many lives.
Finding out how it works is a big step forward. Shishikura and his postdoctoral adviser Megan Matthews found that hydralazine works by blocking an enzyme called ADO, which stands for 2 aminoethanethiol dioxygenase. This enzyme is like an oxygen sensor and a quick response switch that tells blood vessels to tighten when the amount of oxygen in the body starts to drop.\
Matthews says that ADO is like an alarm that goes off right away. She says that a lot of biological processes take time because the body has to make new molecules. ADO avoids this delay by controlling a switch that happens right away. The alarm is effectively silenced when hydralazine binds to the enzyme.
Hydralazine stops the enzyme from breaking Blood Pressure Drug down certain signaling proteins called regulators of G protein signaling by blocking ADO. These proteins tell the blood vessels to stop getting tighter when they build up. This change lowers the amount of calcium inside cells, which Shishikura calls the master regulator of vascular tension. When calcium levels drop, the muscle cells in the walls of blood vessels relax. This makes the vessels wider and lowers blood pressure.
Matthews stresses that the results have effects that go well beyond high blood pressure during pregnancy. She points out that preeclampsia has affected women in her own family and that Black mothers in the United States are still at a higher risk than other women. Knowing how hydralazine works at the molecular level can help us find better and safer treatments for patients who are at risk.
The newly discovered link between the ADO Blood Pressure Drug pathway and brain cancer biology also
makes it possible that older drugs like hydralazine could lead to new
treatments. The study shows that even well-known medicines still have secrets
to tell, and that new discoveries can help scientists make new medicines in the
future.
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