NPPB and Hypertension: Gene expression analysis of hypertrophic cardiac markers revealed a significant, hypertension-induced increase of BNP in WT mice (Figure 4B; WT hyper- vs. normotensive, 2.8 fold increase; p<0.05), whereas the increase of BNP expression in hDDAH1 mice was not significant (hDDAH1 hyper- vs. normotensive, 2.4 fold increase; p = n.s).