In vivo study of angiotensin II tachyphylaxis in freely moving normo- and hypertensive rats.

In vivo tachyphylaxis to the angiotensin II-induced increase in mean arterial blood pressure was studied in conscious freely moving rats by telemetry blood pressure monitoring. The animals studied were the normotensive Sprague Dawley rats (SD), the spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), and two models of experimentally-induced hypertensive rats, namely, the left renal artery stenosed SD hypertensive rat (LRAS) and the deoxycorticosterone acetate/salt SD hypertensive rat (DOCA). Two consecutive dose-response curves to angiotensin II in each rat were obtained. The increase in mean arterial pressure (MAP) at each bolus dose of the first dose-response curve was found not to be significantly different from the corresponding value of the second dose-response curve in the four models of rat studied (i.e. no significant difference in the intra-rat response to AII). In addition, the slope of the dose-response curve is similar for each model of rat indicating that there was no inter-model variation to the response of AII. The results show that the response to AII in the SD and the three models of hypertensive rats was remarkably similar and that they did not develop tachyphylaxis to the pressor response of AII at concentrations ranging from circulating level of 0.0005 nmoles/kg (10(-11) M) to 10 nmoles/kg (2 x 10(-7) M). This was despite the fact that the SD had normal blood pressure and the genesis of hypertension in each model of the hypertensive rats was different.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)