AGT and cardiac hypertrophy: After exposing these cardiomyocytes to Ang II for 24 h, we observed that Ang II-treated and siRNA-NC cardiomyocytes exhibited increased mRNA levels of gene markers of cardiac hypertrophy: atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP, encoded by ANP) and β-myosin heavy chain (β-MHC, encoded by MYH7), compared to untreated control cardiomyocytes (Fig. 4d).