AGT and cardiac hypertrophy: The increase in [Na+]i is crucial for cardiac pathophysiology because, as it is well-known, it stimulates NCXr, leading to an increase in [Ca2+]i (Rothstein et al., 2002; Bril, 2003; Perez et al., 2003; Aiello et al., 2005), process which is involved in Ang II-induced positive inotropic effects (Aiello et al., 2005) and cardiac hypertrophy (Dulce et al., 2006; Cingolani et al., 2008).