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Updated: Aug 24, 2026

Through-the-Wall Blood Sampling Method to Minimize Sleep Disruption in Clinical Settings
Published on: June 13, 2025
Circulating endothelin parallels arterial blood pressure during sleep in healthy subjects
Anne Charloux1, François Piquard, Bernard Geny
1Laboratoire des Régulations Physiologiques et des Rythmes Biologiques chez l'Homme, Institut de Physiologie, 4 rue Kirschleger, 67085, Strasbourg cedex, France. Anne.Charloux@chru-strasbourg.fr
Objective:
To characterize plasma endothelin 1 (ET-1) and arterial blood pressure (ABP) time courses during the first complete non-rapid eye movement (NREM)-REM sleep cycle in healthy subjects, together with plasma renin activity (PRA) and plasma atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP).
Methods:
Heart rate (HR), intra-arterial blood pressure and sleep electroencephalographic activity were recorded continuously during the night in eight healthy 20-28-year-old males. Blood was sampled every 10 min during their first complete sleep cycle for simultaneous measurements of plasma ET-1, PRA and ANP.
Results:
Circulating ET-1 demonstrated significant variations during the sleep cycle (p<0.0001) that paralleled those of ABP (p<0.05) and HR (p<0.005), with a minimum during NREM sleep and a maximum during REM sleep. ET-1 time course opposed that of PRA which increases during NREM sleep and decreases during REM sleep (p<0.0005). Plasma ANP did not demonstrate systematic variation in relation with the sleep cycle.
Conclusion:
Circulating ET-1, which parallels variations of ABP, may participate in ABP regulation during sleep in healthy subjects, in association with the renin-angiotensin system.
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