Chronic resveratrol consumption prevents hypertension development altering electrophysiological currents and Ca signaling in chromaffin cells from SHR rats.

Resveratrol (RESV) is one of the most abundant polyphenol-stilbene compounds found in red wine with well-established cardioprotective and antihypertensive effects. Hyperactivity of the sympathoadrenal axis seems to be one of the major contributing factors in the pathogenesis of human essential hypertension. Alterations in outward voltage-dependent potassium currents (I) and inward voltage-dependent sodium (I), calcium (I) and nicotinic (I) currents, CCs excitability, Ca homeostasis, and catecholamine exocytosis were previously related to the hypertensive state. This raised the issue of whether in vivo long-term RESV treatment can directly act as a modulator of Ca influx or a regulator of ion channel permeability in CCs. We monitored outward and inward currents, and cytosolic Ca concentrations ([Ca]) using different pharmacological approaches in CCs from normotensive (WKY) and hypertensive (SHR) animals chronically exposed to trans-RESV (50 mg/L/v.o, 28 days). The long-term RESV treatment prevented the increase of the systolic blood pressure (SBP) in SHR, without reversion of cardiac hypertrophy. We also found an increase of the outward I, reduction in inward II, and I, and the mitigation of [Ca] overload in CCs from SHR at the end of RESV treatment. Our data revealed that electrophysiological alterations of the CCs and in its Ca homeostasis are potential new targets related to the antihypertensive effects of long-term RESV treatment.