In our study, unilateral diffuse ischemic RI was induced in dogs by transcatheter embolization of small renal artery branches using gelatin sponge granules. This method was simple and did not produce severe trauma in the dogs compared with 5/6 nephrectomy, and it did not cause whole organ infarction or severe renal dysfunction. Wang and Bao found that renal function did not significantly change, even after 1 month of unilateral nephrectomy, indicating that the unilateral kidney could undertake Nandrolone decanoate compensatory function. In our study, creatinine and urea nitrogen levels were slightly increased, CCr was slightly decreased, which might be associated with the effects of persistent and unilateral RI on the normal contralateral kidney. Factors induced by severe renal dysfunction were eliminated in our study because renal function in our study was still at the stage of the compensatory period. Effects of hypertension on left atrial pressure and vulnerability to AF were not present in our study. Hypertension can be induced by severe renal dysfunction, and also by activation of the RAAS and SNS induced by RI. Long-term hypertension is associated with high atrial pressure and atrial enlargement predisposing to AF. LV systolic and diastolic function was not investigated in Fukunaga et al��s study. We found that although BP and LVSP were significantly elevated after 2 weeks of RI, LVEDP was not changed. This finding indicated that hypertension did not Temocapril HCl affect left atrial pressure and its effect on vulnerability to AF was negligible. A possible reason for this finding may be because the length of time of hypertension was too short to affect left atrial pressure. Overactivity of the RAAS and SNS could contribute to elevated BP and LVSP in our model. Heart rate was significantly increased in our study. Heart rate had a tendency to rise in a CKD model, but this was not significant in Fukunaga et al��s study. Ye et al found that renal injury caused by phenol injection significantly increased heart rate and BP, which persisted for more than 3 weeks.