ANG and portal hypertension: Because Ang-(1-7) acts via the MasR and/or MrgD to activate a cascade of downstream signaling pathways to release vasodilatory molecules including nitric oxide (Dimmeler et al., 1999; Mount et al., 2007; Grace et al., 2013), we hypothesized that similar to cirrhotic portal hypertension, the alternate RAS contributes to splanchnic vasodilatation in non-cirrhotic portal hypertension.