Effect of vasopressin V1- and V2-receptor stimulation on blood pressure in DOCA-salt hypertensive rats.

We recently reported that stimulation of the arginine vasopressin (AVP) V1-receptor enhanced the pressor response in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). In the present study, we investigated acute changes in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and heart rate (HR) after intravenous injections of AVP, OPC-21268 (a V1-receptor antagonist), and OPC-31260 (a V2-receptor antagonist), in anesthetized DOCA-salt hypertensive rats (DOCA) and age-matched sham-operated Wistar rats (control) to determine whether the pressor effect is specific to SHR or is present in other hypertensive animal models. SBP increased significantly in DOCA rats 9 min after injection of AVP 5 ng/kg without a concomitant increase in HR. Neither OPC-21268 3mg/kg nor OPC-31260 3mg/kg caused significant changes in SBP or HR. SBP tended to increase when AVP was administered after injection of OPC-31260. HR increased significantly 15 min after the combined treatment with OPC-31260 and AVP in DOCA rats compared with control rats. SBP did not change significantly when AVP was administered after injection of OPC-21268 in DOCA or control rats, but HR decreased significantly from 1 to 4 min after injection of AVP in DOCA rats. Our results suggest that V1-receptor stimulation does not enhance the pressor response in the DOCA rat, which is a model of volume-dependent hypertension, suggesting that the AVP system, especially V1-receptor, is not as important in the development or maintenance of hypertension in DOCA rats as in SHR.