Angiotensin-sodium interaction in blood pressure maintenance of renal hypertensive and normotensive rats.

A specific inhibitor of angiotensin II was used in rats to investigate whether angiotensin is involved in the maintenance of blood pressure in one-kidney Goldblatt hypertension, in which plasma renin levels are not usually increased. The inhibitor produced marked falls in blood pressure, often down to normal levels in the hypertensive animals only when they were depleted in sodium and not after sodium repletion. Much lesser but still significant falls in blood pressure were also produced in normotensive sodium-depleted rats but not in repleted rats. We conclude that the importance of angiotensin for maintaining blood pressure is largely determined by its relation to available sodium or fluid volume, since the renin component in maintenance of either the hypertensive or the normotensive state could be exposed only by sodium deprivation. Therefore, volume expansion per se or other pressor factors may be involved in maintaining blood pressure of these sodium-replete normotensive or hypertensive animals.