[Angiotensin and arteriosclerosis: an approach from transgenic and knockout mice]

This brief review was designed to summarize the relationship between the renin-angiotensin system and arteriosclerosis. Tsukuba hypertensive mice (THM) carrying both the human renin and angiotensinogen genes and C57BL/6J control mice 2 to 3 months of age were fed with either a western or normal diet for 14 weeks. Compared with controls, microscopic analyses revealed accelerated damage of cellular structure in the aortic root in THM fed with the western diet. Remarkably, the surface area of arteriosclerotic lesion in THM was shown to be 4 times larger than that in C57BL/6J on the same western diet. These findings suggested that hypertension induced by the activated renin-angiotensin system is involved in the development of arteriosclerotic lesions.