Proximal tubular compliance (C) was measured in free flow microperfusion experiments from the initial slope of the increase in proximal luminal pressure divided by the step input of volume flow delivered from a microperfusion pipette inserted in a downstream proximal convolution. Five groups of rats were studied: Munich Wistar (WU, n = 11) and Sprague-Dawley rats (SPRD, n = 6) anaesthetized with inactin; and SPRD (n = 11), Wistar Kyoto (WKY, n = 9), and spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR, n = 11) anaesthetized with halothane. In the inactin groups, C was: 0.309 +/- 0.161 and 0.266 +/- 0.136 nl mm Hg-1, respectively. In the halothane groups, C was: 0.125 +/- 0.023, 0.125 +/- 0.029, and 0.119 +/- 0.0127 nl mm Hg-1, respectively. The means in the inactin groups were significantly higher than those from the halothane groups (P less than 0.001). It is concluded that the choice of anaesthetics has a profound influence on the proximal tubular compliance in the rat, and that the compliance of SHR is equal to that of normotensive rats.