Lymphocyte basal cyclic AMP production predicts blood pressure.

Cyclic AMP (cAMP) serves as the second messenger for a variety of receptor systems. While much attention has been placed on the importance of receptor-stimulated levels of cAMP accumulation, little attention has been given to the potential importance of the unstimulated basal levels. We measured both stimulated and unstimulated cAMP accumulation, as well as receptor number, in lymphocytes in 15 subjects and found relatively strong associations between basal cAMP accumulation and systolic (p = .004) and diastolic (p less than .001) blood pressure. Blood pressure was unrelated to either receptor number or adrenergically-stimulated levels of cAMP. These results underscore not only the complexity of the role of cAMP in the regulation of blood pressure but also the usefulness of peripheral blood cells as models of more central physiological regulation.