The furanocoumarin imperatorin has been reported to have hypotensive effect, and we have investigated its activity on myocardial hypertrophy. Imperatorin displayed similar chromatographic retention peak to verapamil in the model of cardiac muscle/cell membrane chromatography, and could reduce in a concentration-dependent way protein content and cell size of myocytes prestimulated with angiotensin II. The ratio of heart weight to body weight (mg/g) (4.13 ± 0.06 in SHRs, 3.77 ± 0.02 with imperatorin 25 mg kg(-1)d(-1) 16 17 ig, P<0.01) was significantly lower in the imperatorin-treated SHRs. Taken together, our observations show that imperatorin exerts anti-hypertrophic effect both in vitro and in vivo.
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