Hypertensive patients exhibit an increased risk for thrombosis, which links this CVD risk factor to diseases such as stroke and myocardial infarction. While abnormalities in platelet function, coagulation/fibrinolysis, and vessel wall activation have been implicated in the prothrombotic phenotype associated with hypertension
4, 22, the mechanisms underlying this complication of hypertension remain poorly understood. The RAS has received considerable attention in this regard since drugs that target the RAS significantly reduce the incidence of thrombosis in hypertensive patients, animal studies have revealed a similar role for the RAS in the accelerated carotid artery thrombosis associated with renovascular hypertension
1, 23, and a functional link between RAS activation and impaired fibrinolysis via PAI-1 has been demonstrated
24, 25. The present study provides evidence that the prothrombogenic effects of AngII II are not limited to large arteries and extend to the microvasculature. The accelerated microvascular thrombosis associated with chronic AngII infusion is most striking in arterioles, with a less reproducible response noted in venules. AngII infusion was also associated with significantly elevated plasma PAI-1 levels. While murine platelets were shown to respond to low picomolar levels of AngII in an AT1r-dependent manner, the AngII-enhanced arteriolar thrombosis appears to occur independently of AT1r activation. Instead, our findings implicate AT2r in the initiation (onset) and AT4r in the flow cessation phases of AngII-mediated thrombosis. Bradykinin-1 and endothelin-1A receptors (unlike AT2r and AT4r) appear to contribute to both the initiation and flow cessation phases of AngII-enhanced thrombus formation.
Patients with hypertension exhibit evidence for platelet activation and increased aggregation
5, responses that can be reproduced by infusion of AngII in animals
7. These observations are consistent with evidence that human platelets express a low density of high affinity AT1 receptors that bind to AngII
26,27. Since the AngII-mediated enhancement of light/dye-induced thrombosis may reflect a direct action of the peptide on platelets, we evaluated whether AngII promotes the aggregation of murine platelets. We found that picomolar levels of AngII elicit a brisk aggregation response of WT platelets, while nanomolar and higher concentrations have no effect. The observed insensitivity to higher concentrations of AngII was not observed with thrombin and may reflect rapid desensitization of AT1 receptors
27, which could account for the previously reported absence of aggregation of rat platelets following exposure to 10
−7M AngII
7. A role for receptor desensitization is supported by a report that employed AT1a receptor transfected CHO-K1 cells to demonstrate AT1r within 50 seconds following exposure to 10
−9 M AngII.
27 Despite desensitization of AT1r following AngII exposure, the platelets may remain responsive to other agonists like thrombin. We show in this study that prior exposure of murine platelets to 10
−9 M AngII does not diminish the platelet aggregation response to thrombin, instead it is enhanced, suggesting that the signaling mechanisms within platelets are not compromised by the high levels of AngII. The enhanced sensitivity of AngII exposed platelets to thrombin is consistent with a previous report that describes an increased thrombin receptor expression in smooth muscle cells exposed to 10
−9 M AngII for 2 hrs.
28 In our model, the AngII-mediated platelet aggregation appears to be dependent on AT1r inasmuch as platelets derived from AT1r
−/− mice did not respond to picomolar levels of AngII. A role for AT2r and AT4r in AngII mediated aggregation appears unlikely based on the complete absence of an aggregation response by AT1r deficient platelets and based on studies of human platelets
26. These findings, when considered with our in vivo data, suggest that AngII-enhanced thrombus formation likely reflects an action of AngII on the vessel wall, rather than on platelets.
The absence of a role for AT1r in the enhanced arteriolar thrombus formation associated with chronic AngII infusion contrasts with previous reports describing the effectiveness of AT1r antagonists in blunting the platelet-endothelial cell adhesion induced in venules by acute AngII exposure
29 or by hypercholesterolemia
18. Since bone marrow chimeras produced from AT1r
−/− mice have revealed that the enhanced platelet adhesion response to hypercholesterolemia is mediated by vascular wall (not platelet) AT1r, it is possible that the discrepancy between the roles of AT1r in platelet adhesion vs thrombosis may relate to inherent differences between arterioles and venules
30. While the present study fails to implicate AT1r in the arteriolar thrombosis associated with chronically elevated AngII, we do provide some evidence for a protective role of AT1r in the initiation of thrombosis in both arterioles and venules in the absence of exogenous AngII. This observation is consistent with our in vitro aggregation results that show an exaggerated platelet aggregation response of AT1r
−/− platelets to thrombin.
Previous studies by others have demonstrated a link between AngII and the kallikrein-kinin system in the modulation of coagulation, thrombus formation
31, and fibrinolysis (impaired due to increased PAI-1 expression)
32. BK-1 receptors are induced following tissue injury, inflammation, and AngII-infusion
11,33. A prothrombotic role for bradykinin is supported by the prolonged time for carotid artery occlusion following thrombus induction in mice genetically deficient in kininogen, the substrate for kallikrein-mediated generation of bradykinin
12. The BK-1r induction may occur as a result of sustained BK-2r activation and consequent desensitization
33. The comparable effects of the AT2r and bradykinin BK-1r antagonists in prolonging the initiation (onset) of thrombosis during chronic AngII infusion are also consistent with an interaction between angiotensin and bradykinin receptors. Our observation that the BK-1r antagonist also prolonged the time for complete flow cessation after light/dye injury indicates that BK-1r dependent signaling plays a crucial role in the stabilization phase of thrombus formation.
An interesting and potentially important observation in this study is that an endothelin-1A receptor antagonist was as effective as the BK-1r antagonist in preventing the AngII-mediated acceleration of flow cessation during thrombus formation. The similarity of the protective responses afforded by antagonists to BK-1r and ET-1Ar suggests that the two receptors act through a common mechanism. AngII and its metabolites are known to stimulate the release of PAI-1
34,35, which would impair fibrinolysis and enhance thrombus development
34–36. In this regard, it is noteworthy that both bradykinin and endothelin can mediate an increased expression of PAI-1
32,37. Heterodimerization of AngII and bradykinin receptors represents another potential mechanism however such interactions have been demonstrated for AT1r and BK2r
38, neither of which appear to play a role in our in vivo model. While it is well established that AngII can elicit endothelin release from endothelial cells by engaging AT1r
39, it remains unclear if/how endothelin-1 production and release by endothelial cells are linked to AT2 and/or BK-1 receptors. Additional support for a role for endothelin-1 in thrombus formation is provided by reports describing the ability of endothelin-1 to impair fibrinolysis via increased PAI-expression
37, elicit a dose-dependent increase in plasma thrombin-antithrombin levels, increase the expression of von Willibrand factor on endothelial cells, and elicit thrombus formation in the rat mesenteric microvasculature
15,16.
There is strong evidence linking the AT4 receptor to fibrinolysis and thrombosis. AT4r activation appears to result in increased active PAI-1 levels in murine plasma and an impairment of fibrinolysis
25. This contention is supported by experiments demonstrating that AT4r-deficient (IRAP
−/−) mice exhibit a prolongation of arterial thrombus formation
25, while PAI-1 antagonism prevents thrombosis
40. AT4r-mediated impairment of fibrinolysis is consistent with our observation that Divalinal prolonged the time to flow cessation, but not the initiation phase of thrombus development in AngII infused mice. The possibility that impaired fibrinolysis accounts for the shared actions of AT4r, ET-1Ar, and BK-1r on the flow cessation response in mice receiving AngII is supported by reports linking both endothelin and bradykinin to impaired fibrinolysis via PAI-1 induction
32,37 as well as evidence that links AT4r signaling to endogenous endothelin
41. Furthermore, we demonstrate in this study that chronic AngII infusion results in a significantly elevated PAI-1 level in mouse plasma. While connections between the different receptors evaluated in this study are suggested by circumstantial evidence in the literature, it is clear that additional work is needed to more clearly define how these receptor populations interact to mediate AngII induced microvascular thrombosis.