Metabolic effects of telmisartan in spontaneously hypertensive rats

The favorable metabolic effects of telmisartan are supposedly related to the changes in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism driven by peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor-gamma (PPARgamma). The fatty acid translocase CD36 is one of the PPARgamma targets that mediate these actions. We studied the metabolic effects of telmisartan in the NIH-derived strain of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR/NIH), which harbors a deletion mutation in CD36, in comparison to the original SHRs (SHR/Izm), which express wild-type CD36. In SHR/Izm, administration of telmisartan was associated with significantly lower serum levels of free fatty acids (42%), triglycerides (29%), glucose (11%), insulin (31%), and lower hepatic triglyceride (17%) levels, as well as larger epididymal fat pads (1.19-fold) than in SHR/NIH. Additionally, insulin-stimulated glucose incorporation into epididymal fat tissues was significantly augmented in SHR/Izm (1.33-fold) compared with SHR/NIH. In the epididymal fat pads of SHR/Izm treated with telmisartan, CD36 mRNA transcript (1.55-fold) and protein expression (1.37-fold) were also significantly enhanced. However, after 4 weeks of treatment with telmisartan, in SHR/NIH only serum free fatty acid levels were slightly reduced (20%). Overall, these results showed marked discrepancies in the metabolic actions of telmisartan in SHR/Izm and SHR/NIH and further supported the involvement of CD36 in the actions of this drug, suggesting that this pharmacogenetic interaction may be of particular importance in CD36-deficient patients.