Stroke-prone renovascular hypertensive rats.
OBJECTIVE
To summarized the methods for establishment, characteristics of vascular lesions in brain and heart and the application of stroke-prone renovascular hypertensive rats (RHRSP).


METHODS
Most published original articles about RHRSP in our laboratory were reviewed.


RESULTS
After the renal arteries were constricted bilaterally with ring-shape silver clips, the stroke-prone renovascular hypertensive rats were established. Hypertension was produced in all RHRSP (100%). The peak of blood pressure in RHRSP reached 29.1 +/- 3.0 kPa. The lesions of cerebral arteries and arterioles and the damage of cerebral capillary structure by hypertension were observed in the RHRSP. The incidence of spontaneous stroke was 56.4% within 40 weeks after the renal artery constriction. Left ventricular hypertrophy and small coronary arterial lesions in myocardium were discovered in all RHRSP. Myocardial infarction occurred spontaneously in 41.8% of RHRSP. The animal models have been used for the studies on mechanisms of stroke and myocardial infarction.


CONCLUSIONS
Because the vascular lesions in cerebrum and heart in RHRSP are similar to that in human beings with hypertension, RHRSP can be used in the studies on mechanisms of hypertensive arteriosclerotic stroke and cardiac lesions and on verifying the effects of different medications to complications of hypertension, and the results might be more reliable than that in animal models without hypertension.
Department of Neurology, First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou 510080, China.
J
J
Zeng
R
R
Huang
Z
Z
Su
D000818:Animals; D006978:Hypertension, Renovascular / Q000150:complications; D017379:Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular / Q000209:etiology*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D011918:Rats, Inbred SHR; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D020521:Stroke / Q000209:etiology*