1. To determine whether the antihypertensive response in deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA) salt-treated rats was mediated by kinins on the luminal side of renal tubules or in the circulation, selective urinary kininase inhibitors were administered to normal Brown Norway Kitasato (BN-Ki) rats and kininogen-deficient Brown Norway Katholiek (BN-Ka) rats. 2. Kinins were degraded by neutral endopeptidase (NEP) and carboxypeptidase Y-like kininase (CPY) in urine, but were inactivated mainly by angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) in the plasma. 3. Ebelactone B inhibited CPY, while poststatin inhibited CPY and NEP. 4. Daily administration of poststatin (5 mg/kg per day, s.c.) for 3 days reduced blood pressure (BP) in DOCA salt-treated BN-Ki rats, but not in BN-Ka rats. 5. Ebelactone B (5 mg/kg per day, s.c.) also reduced BP in BN-Ki rats, which was accompanied by increased urinary sodium excretion, but had no effect on BP in BN-Ka rats. 6. Lisinopril (5 mg/kg per day, s.c.) had no effect on BP in either rat strain. 7. Arterial kinin levels in BN-Ki rats increased significantly (2.2-4.6 pg/mL) with captopril (10 mg/kg, s.c.). However, arterial kinin levels that induced hypotension following the infusion of bradykinin (1000 ng/kg per min, i.v.) were 110-fold higher than endogenous arterial kinin levels attained following captopril. 8. These results suggest that inhibition of kinin degradation on the luminal side of the renal tubules may effectively attenuate hypertension.