title: Steady endothelial nitric oxide synthase expression in heart failure.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Vascular nitric oxide (NO)-mediated vasodilation is reduced in the limb vasculature of patients with chronic heart failure. Depressed gene expression of vascular endothelial NO synthase has been reported in experimental models of heart failure. We sought to investigate endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) mRNA expression in the skeletal muscle vasculature of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and in controls.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Transcript levels for eNOS were measured and normalized to von Willebrand factor gene expression level, in samples of skeletal muscle from patients with CHF (n = 20) and healthy subjects (n = 7). CHF was not associated with a decrease in eNOS expression. There was a trend towards an increased expression in NYHA class IV patients. Similar results were found when normalized to GAPDH mRNA levels.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Vascular endothelial dysfunction that is observed in patients with severe heart failure does not appear to be related to a specific decrease in the expression of the gene encoding for endothelial NOS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA. ennezat@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Pierre V
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Ennezat
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Van Belle
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Asseman
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cohen-Solal
authors.forename: Todd
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.forename: Thierry H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Lejemtel
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D015971:Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000201:enzymology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000378:metabolism; D052250:Nitric Oxide Synthase Type III / Q000378:metabolism*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
chemical_list: D052250:Nitric Oxide Synthase Type III