Permeability of intestinal microvessels in chronic arterial hypertension.

We studied changes in intestinal microvascular permeability resulting from chronic arterial hypertension. Normotensive dogs and dogs made chronically hypertensive utilizing the one-kidney, one clip Goldblatt technique were used to obtain values for: arterial pressure, portal pressure, intestinal lymph flow, and the lymph-to-plasma protein concentration ratio (CL/Cp). Values for the normotensive dogs were 111 mm Hg, 7.1 mm Hg, 6.2 ml/hr, and 0.64, respectively, while values for the chronically hypertensive dogs were 165 mm Hg, 7.3 mm Hg, 12.5 ml/hr, and 0.66, respectively. Control lymph flow in the hypertensives was 100% greater than in the normotensives, while there was no significant difference in control CL/Cp between the two groups. When portal venous pressure was acutely increased to 30 mm Hg, lymph flow increased to approximately the same maximum value in both groups. This represents an eightfold increase in normotensive and a fourfold increase in hypertensive lymph flows. The reflection coefficient determined as 1 - (CL/Cp) for total proteins at maximum lymph flow was 0.78 for the normotensives and 0.56 for the hypertensives. An electrophoretic analysis indicated sieving of large molecular weight protein fractions was considerably reduced in the hypertensives when compared to the normotensives. Our results indicate a significant increase in intestinal microvascular permeability to macromolecules resulting from the one-kidney, one clip Goldblatt model of chronic arterial hypertension.