Adenosine-induced renal vasoconstriction in diabetes mellitus rats: role of nitric oxide. Pflueger, Axel C., Hartmut Osswald and Franklyn G. Knox. Departments of Medicine and Physiology & Biophysics, Mayo Clinic and Foundation, Rochester, MN 55905 and *Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Tuebingen University, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany
APStracts 5:0213F, 1998.
In rats with streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes, the renal vasoconstrictor effect of adenosine is enhanced. We investigated the role of nitric oxide (NO) in the renal vascular response to exogenous and endogenous adenosine in control and STZ diabetic rats. Exogenous adenosine (0.01-100 nmol) injected into the abdominal aorta, decreased renal blood flow (RBF) in a dose-dependent manner to a much greater extent in STZ rats than in control rats (P<0.001). Inhibition of NO synthesis with N-(-nitro-L-arginine (L-NNA, 30 _mol/kg i.v.) and with renal perfusion pressure controlled potentiated the adenosine-induced renal vasoconstriction to a significantly greater extent in control rats than STZ rats. In control rats, L-NNA shifted the dose response curve of exogenous adenosine-induced RBF reductions to the left by a factor of 32 (ED50: from 5.5 to 0.17 nmol adenosine, n=6) and in STZ rats only by a factor of 4.6 (ED50: from 0.32 to 0.07 nmol adenosine, n=6). The renal response to endogenous adenosine was assessed by the magnitude of the postocclusive reduction of RBF (POR) after a 30 sec renal artery occulusion. POR was markedly enhanced in STZ rats (-67.8(3.8 %, P<0.001) compared to control rats (-38.8(4.3 %). L-NNA markedly enhanced POR in control rats but did not increase POR in STZ rats. These findings demonstrate a greater potentiation of the adenosine -induced renal vasoconstriction in the presence of L-NNA infusion in control rats compared to STZ rats. We conclude that the increased vasoconstrictor sensitivity of the diabetic renal vasculature to adenosine is caused by a defective NO-dependent renal vasodilation of the afferent arteriole in diabetic rats.

Received 29 September 1998; accepted in final form 10 December
1998.
APS Manuscript Number F253-8.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Renal Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1998 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 18 December 1998