title: The knockout of urea transporter-B improves the hemorheological properties of erythrocyte.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Urea transporter-B (UT-B), highly expressed in erythrocyte, confers specific permeability to urea, urea analogues and water. The purpose of this study was to determine the hemorheological properties of UT-B null erythrocyte using a series of biophysical techniques.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The blood was taken from UT-B knockout and wild-type mice and the hemorheological parameters were measured. The UT-B inhibitor, PU-14, was used to treat the erythrocyte of wild-type mice in vitro and the deformability of the treated erythrocyte was analyzed. The results showed that UT-B knockout improves the hemorheological properties of erythrocyte, including increased erythrocyte deformation index, small deformation index, orientation index, low osmotic fragility and high electrophoretic rate. The UT-B inhibitor PU-14 had the similar effect as UT-B knockout on the deformation indices. The whole blood viscosity in UT-B knockout mice showed reduction trend as compared to wild-type mice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The data indicate that UT-B is involved in the regulation of hemorheology, which suggests that UT-B may be a potential therapeutic target for improving the hemorheology in some metabolic and hereditary diseases.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Key Laboratory of Molecular Cardiovascular Sciences, Ministry of Education, and Department of Pharmacology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China.
authors: Xiaoqiang
authors: X
authors: Geng
authors: State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Key Laboratory of Molecular Cardiovascular Sciences, Ministry of Education, and Department of Pharmacology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China.
authors: Tianluo
authors: T
authors: Lei
authors: State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Key Laboratory of Molecular Cardiovascular Sciences, Ministry of Education, and Department of Pharmacology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China.
authors: Hong
authors: H
authors: Zhou
authors: Hemorheology Center, Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China.
authors: Weijuan
authors: W
authors: Yao
authors: Department of Otolaryngology and Head Neck, China-Japan Union Hospital, Changchun, China.
authors: Weihong
authors: W
authors: Xin
authors: State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Key Laboratory of Molecular Cardiovascular Sciences, Ministry of Education, and Department of Pharmacology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China.
authors: Baoxue
authors: B
authors: Yang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004909:Erythrocyte Indices / Q000502:physiology*; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000187:drug effects*; D018056:Hemorheology; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D051379:Mice
chemical_list: D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; C452857:urea transporter B, mouse
keywords: UT-B; Urea transporter; erythrocyte; hemorheology; knockout