Vascular smooth muscle membrane potentials in rats with one-kidney, one clip and reduced renal mass-saline hypertension: the influence of a humoral sodium pump inhibitor.

Ninety to 120 min after removal of the caudal arteries, vascular smooth muscle cells from one-kidney, one clip (1-K, 1C) hypertensive animals were depolarized relative to those in appropriate control animals but cells from reduced renal mass-saline (RRM-S) hypertensive animals were not. However, supernatants of boiled plasma from both of the hypertensive models depolarized vascular smooth muscle cells in arteries taken from normotensive animals. These studies suggest that an agent in the plasma of these animals depolarizes vascular smooth muscle cells. This could help to explain the vasoconstriction in these hypertensive animals.