Is vasopressin involved in the pathogenesis of malignant desoxycorticosterone hypertension in rats?

Rats with unilateral nephrectomy were offered 1% sodium chloride as drinking fluid and were injected with desoxycorticosterone trimethylacetate (D.O.C.-T.M.A.) at weekly intervals. During the fourth to seventh week after the start of the experiment, malignant hypertension developed in most of the animals: body weight fell, reflecting volume depletion; serum osmolality and serum sodium and urea concentrations increased; in the kidneys malignant nephrosclerosis occurred. In such animals, plasma concentrations of arginine-vasopressin were increased ten-fold in comparison with control animals; intravenous injection of a specific vasopressin antibody resulted in a transient fall of blood-pressure (B.P.) to normal or subnormal levels, while the injection of an angiotensin-I or angiotensin-II antibody did not affect B.P. In control animals none of the antibodies had an effect on B.P. It is concluded that in the pathogenesis of malignant D.O.C. hypertension vasopressin plays a role similar to that of renin-angiotensin in malignant renal hypertension.