REN and Hypertension: To examine the role of the lymphatic vasculature in cardiac dysfunction further, we used a model of angiotensin II infusion, which promotes cardiac dysfunction directly via its effects on cardiomyocytes (Mazzolai et al., 2000; Mehta and Griendling, 2007) and indirectly by its action on the renin-angiotensin system to induce hypertension (Mehta and Griendling, 2007).