Editorial Commentary: Does Interleukin-6 Contribute to Renal Hemodynamic Changes During Angiotensin II Dependent Hypertension?

The role that the adaptive immune system has in the control of blood pressure and pathogenesis of hypertension has been of interest to investigators for several decades. Early evidence on this subject in humans showed an enhanced T lymphocyte activation during malignant hypertension 1 and also implicated a role for B lymphocytes since autoantibody production was elevated in hypertensive patients 2 . In addition, early studies in experimental animal models demonstrated hat thymectomy cured hypertension in New Zealand Black Mice 3 or that renal induced hypertension in rats was associated with thymic hypertrophy 4 . Moreover, the transplantation of thymus extracts from Wistar Kyoto Rats or immunosuppressive therapy reduced blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats 5 , 6 . Although these studies strongly implicated immune system dysfunction as an important contributor to the development of hypertension, interest in the role for the immune system in blood pressure control appeared to wane. requires T − found AngII using lowered