High levels of ventricular apoptosis is a characteristic feature in animal models of essential hypertension, including SHR (Díez et al., 1979; Hamet et al., 1979; Li et al., 1997), and increased vascular apoptosis has been reported in male DOCA salt hypertension (Sharifi and Schiffrin, 1997), SHR (Sharifi and Schiffrin, 1998), and Ang II induced hypertensive rats (Diep et al., 1979). This evidence concerns the gene AGT and essential hypertension.