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Failure of Angiotensin II to Inhibit Corticotropin-Stimulated Cortisol Secretion^*

ERIC A. ESPINER, STANLEY LUN and DENIS S. HART

Medical Unit, the Princess Margaret Hospital, and Lincoln College Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract

In view of the reported inhibitory effect of angiotensin II on cortisol secretion in human subjects, the effect of local angiotensin infusions on steroid secretion maintained by ACTH was examined by using sheep with cervical autotransplanted adrenal glands. During sustained submaximal stimulation by exogenous ACTH (40–80 µU/min), the addition of local infusions of angiotensin II (1.6–160.0 ng/min) caused increased aldosterone and smaller increments in cortisol secretion in most experiments. There was no evidence of inhibition of cortisol secretion by angiotensin. When similar experiments were undertaken during maximum stimulation by ACTH (16.6 mU/min), increments in aldosterone, but not in cortisol secretion, were observed. These studies exclude an acute inhibitory effect of angiotensin on cortisol biosynthesis, at least in ovine adrenal glands, during stimulation by ACTH. (Endocrinology 102: 1362, 1978)

Footnotes

^* This work was supported by the New Zealand Medical Research Council.

To whom requests for reprints should be addressed at: Princess Margaret Hospital, Medical Unit, Cashmere Road, Christchurch, 2, New Zealand.

Received July 11, 1977.