Transgenic animals: new approaches to hypertension research

We have shown that it is possible to generate transgenic rats efficiently, allowing direct experimentation in this species, without first testing constructs in the mouse. Having developed the technology for producing transgenic rats, we now hope to generate new and precise models of hypertension and to test candidate genes that may be responsible for the phenotype in existing animal models. The potential to choose between the rat and the mouse for these studies will allow much greater flexibility in experimental design. Many molecular questions are more appropriately addressed in the mouse but questions concerning physiology and development of the cardiovascular system are more appropriately addressed in the rat. With a large number of genes relevant to cardiovascular research now available, transgenic technology will become increasingly important in the future, and even more so if homologous recombination becomes feasible in the rat. The transgenic rat therefore heralds an exciting new dimension in hypertension research.