Influence of streptozotocin-induced diabetes on blood pressure and on renin formation and release

Summary

I.v. injection of 40 mg/kg or 65 mg/kg streptozotocin reliably induced diabetes in female Sprague-Dawley rats, but failed to induce hypertension within the following 42 days. In most animals injected with the higher dose and in some animals injected with the lower dose, the tail blood flow was permanently impaired so that no blood pressure signals could be obtained by tail plethysmography. This phenomenon occurred also when the drug was injected into the jugular vein and thus was not due to a local effect of streptozotocin. 15 days after 65 mg/kg streptozotocin, the mean arterial pressure of the rats was similar to that of controls, when measured in the awake state (carotid cannula) or under ether anaesthesia. 42 days after streptozotocin, under pentobarbital anaesthesia, the blood pressure was again normal in the animals given 40 mg/kg of the drug and depressed in the animals given 65 mg/kg of the drug 42 days previously. The increase of blood pressure induced by 1 μg/kg (−)-noradrenaline i.v. was similar in the latter group of animals and in controls.

The renal cortical renin concentration was much lower than in controls 42 days after either dose of streptozotocin, while the plasma renin activity was normal (40 mg/kg) or increased (65 mg/kg). The low renal renin content may have been due to the diabetic state, rather than to the drug itself. Adrenal medullary dopamine-beta-hydroxylase activity was increased 42 days after the higher dose of streptozotocin.