Effect of shear stress on asymmetric dimethylarginine release from vascular endothelial cells

We demonstrated recently that plasma concentrations of asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), an endogenous inhibitor of nitric oxide (NO) synthase, are increased by high salt intake concomitantly with a decrease in plasma levels of NO in human hypertension. We investigated the effect of shear stress on ADMA release in 2 types of cells: transformed human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs; cell line ECV-304) and HUVECs. Exposure of ECV-304 cells and HUVECs to shear stress with the use of a cone-plate viscometer enhanced gene expression of protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT-1), ADMA synthase. In HUVECs, the ratio of PRMT-1 to glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase mRNA was increased by 2-fold by a shear stress of > or =15 dyne/cm2. A dominant-negative mutant of IkappaB kinase alpha and troglitazone at 8 micromol/L, an activator of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma, abolished the shear stress-induced increase in PRMT-1 gene expression in parallel with the blockade of nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB translocation into the nucleus. The activity of dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase, the degradation enzyme of ADMA, was unchanged after shear stress < or =15 dyne/cm2 and was enhanced by 1.48+/-0.06-fold (P<0.05) by shear stress at 25 dyne/cm2. The release of ADMA was increased by 1.64+/-0.10-fold (P<0.05) by shear stress at 15 dyne/cm2 but was not affected by shear stress at 25 dyne/cm2. These results indicate that shear stress enhances gene expression of PRMT-1 and ADMA release via activation of the NF-kappaB pathway. Shear stress at higher magnitudes facilitates the degradation of ADMA, thus returning ADMA release levels to baseline.