Role of the renin-angiotensin system in hypertension produced by unilateral renal artery constriction in the rat.

1. Conscious rats which had undergone unilateral renal artery constriction were infused for 1 h with a specific antagonist of angiotensin II, 1-Sar-8-Ala-angiotensin II (P-113). 2. There was a highly significant correlation between the change in blood pressure induced by P-113 and the pre-infusion plasma renin concentration (PRC), regardless of initial blood pressure or the duration of stenosis. However, the blood pressure fall was not significantly greater in nineteen hypertensive rats than in eleven which remained normotensive. P-113 did not abolish the hypertension. 3. The extent to which angiotensin II supports blood pressure in rats with renal artery constriction is directly related to the PRC.