Response to Hepatocyte Growth Factor and Cardiomyopathy in Dialysis Patients

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a mesenchyme-derived pleiotropic factor that regulates cell growth, cell motility, and morphogenesis of various types of cells and is, thus, considered a humoral mediator of epithelial-mesenchymal interactions. Although HGF was originally identified as a potent mitogen for hepatocytes, HGF is now well known as an angiogenic growth factor. Because the presence of its specific receptor, c-met, is observed in vascular cells and cardiac myocytes, the cardiovascular HGF-met system has been a center of interest. Malatino et al1 suggested that an increase in circulating HGF might be compensated to myocardial damage in dialysis patients, because our recent report demonstrated that HGF reduced cardiac fibrosis through the inhibition of endothelial mesenchymal transition and the transformation of fibroblasts to myofibroblasts.2 We agree with their hypothesis that circulating HGF might be increased to attenuate the cardiovascular damage. In various pathophysiological conditions, such as hypertension, peripheral …