BILATERAL adrenalectomy of normal rats causes a lowering of the level of plasma renin-substrate (hypertensinogen) (Gaudino, 1944). Treatment of such animals with desoxycorticosterone or with 17-hydroxy-11-dehydrocorticosterone restores renin-substrate to normal or near normal. These findings suggest that the assay of renin-substrate in the plasma of adrenalectomized rats before and after the administration of steroids might provide new information concerning the relative biological activity of these compounds. Therefore, experiments were performed with steroids on normal rats and with ACTH on normal and hypophysectomized rats in the hope that additional information could be obtained regarding the mechanism of renin-substrate formation.
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Helmer et al. (1951) studied this question.