Transcriptional profiling in ISIAH rats (inherited stress-induced arterial hypertension) and normotensive Wistar Albino Glaxo rats

The project is directed to investigation of molecular mechanisms related to the stress-sensitive hypertension development. The etiology of essential hypertension is multifactorial. As the studies on experimental animal models provide a valuable information to elucidate the nature of polygenic traits, a number of animal models of essential hypertension are widely used. One of these is the ISIAH (Inherited Stress-Induced Arterial Hypertension) rat strain, which have been developed to study the mechanisms of the stress-sensitive hypertension and its complications. The ISIAH rat strain was selected from normotensive Wistar rats for enhanced blood pressure response to an emotional stress caused by 30 min restraint in a cylindrical wire-mesh cell. The ISIAH rats are characterized by elevated of both the basal arterial blood pressure which reaches up to 175.0 +- 3.5 mmHg in males and 165.0 +- 3.0 mmHg in females, and the stress-induced blood pressure which increases just after the mild emotional stress up to 195.0 +- 2.4 mmHg in males and 174.0 +- 3.2 mmHg in females. The high genetic homogeneity of the ISIAH strain was demonstrated by the DNA fingerprinting procedure using a multilocus microsatellite (CAC)5 probe. The earlier studies showed that the ISIAH rats may be regarded as a model of the human stress-sensitive hypertensive disease with predominant involvement of the neuroendocrine hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal and sympathoadrenal systems in pathogenesis of the hypertensive state.