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The Metabolic Clearance Rate of and Pressor Responses to Vasopressin in Male and Female Rats^*

Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences Memphis, Tennessee 38163

Address requests for reprints and all correspondence to: Joan T. Crofton, University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, 894 Union Avenue, Room 512, Memphis, Tennessee 38163.

Abstract

Recent evidence indicates that the plasma vasopressin concentration is higher in males than in females and that this may be due to sexually dimorphic effects of the gonadal steroids. However, whether this difference in plasma vasopressin levels reflects differences in secretion or metabolism of the hormone could not be determined from the available data. Therefore, we measured the MCR of vasopressin in conscious male and female rats over a broad range of plasma concentrations of the hormone. No differences were observed in MCR either within a sex or between the sexes over the ranges of plasma concentrations of vasopressin tested. This indicates that the differences in basal plasma vasopressin concentration that were previously reported between male and female rats reflect differences in secretion. In addition, the pressor responses to infused vasopressin were 2 to 3 times greater (P < 0.01) in male than in female rats, even though the plasma vasopressin concentrations achieved in the two groups were identical. Although the basal heart rate was higher (P < 0.01) in female than in male rats, the decreases in heart rate observed in response to the vasopressin infusions were similar between the sexes. The mechanisms responsible for the differences in basal vasopressin secretion and pressor responsiveness between males and females are uncertain, but could involve actions of the gonadal steroids on the central nervous system and the peripheral vasculature. (Endocrinology 118: 1777–1781, 1986)

Footnotes

^* This work was supported by USPHS Grants HL-12990 and HL-19209 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

Received September 12, 1985.

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