Dominance of pressure natriuresis in acute depressor responses to increased renal artery pressure in rabbits and rats

Increasing renal artery pressure (RAP) activates pressure diuresis/natriuresis and inhibits renal renin release. There is also evidence that increasing RAP stimulates release of a putative depressor hormone from the renal medulla, although this hypothesis remains controversial. We examined the relative roles of these antihypertensive mechanisms in the acute depressor responses to increased RAP in anaesthetized rabbits and rats. In rabbits, an extracorporeal circuit was established which allows RAP to be set and controlled without direct effects on systemic haemodynamics. When RAP was maintained at similar to65 mmHg, cardiac output (CO) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) did not change significantly. In contrast, when RAP was increased to similar to160 mmHg, CO and MAP fell 20 +/- 5 % and 36 +/- 5 %, respectively, over 30 min. Urine flow also increased more than 28-fold when RAP was increased. When compound sodium lactate was infused intravenously at a rate equal to urine flow, neither CO nor MAP fell significantly in response to increased RAP. In 1 kidney-1 clip hypertensive rats, MAP fell by 54 +/- 10 mmHg over a 2 h period after unclipping. In rats in which isotonic NaCl was administered intravenously at a rate equal to urine flow, MAP did not change significantly after unclipping (-14 +/- 9 mmHg). Our results suggest that the depressor responses to increasing RAP in these experimental models are chiefly attributable to hypovolaemia secondary to pressure diuresis/natruresis. These models therefore appear not to be bioassays for release of a putative renal medullary depressor hormone.