The individual contributions of, and potential interactions between, the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) and the humoral adrenergic stress response to blood pressure regulation were examined in rainbow trout. Intravenous injection of the smooth muscle relaxant, papaverine (10 mg/kg), elicited a transient decrease in dorsal aortic blood pressure (P DA ) and systemic vascular resistance (R S ), and significant increases in plasma angiotensin II (Ang II) and catecholamine concentrations. Blockade of -adrenoceptors before papaverine treatment prevented P DA and R S recovery, had no effect on the increase in plasma catecholamines, and resulted in greater plasma Ang II concentrations. Administration of the angiotensinconverting enzyme inhibitor, lisinopril (10 4 mol/kg), before papaverine treatment attenuated the increases in the plasma concentrations of Ang II, adrenaline, and noradrenaline by 90, 79, and 40%, respectively and also prevented P DA and R S recovery. By itself, lisinopril treatment caused a gradual and sustained decrease in P DA and R S , and reductions in basal plasma Ang II and adrenaline concentrations. Bolus injection of a catecholamine cocktail (4 nmol/kg noradrenaline plus 40 nmol/kg adrenaline) in the lisinopril+papaverine-treated trout, to supplement their circulating catecholamine concentrations and mimic those observed in fish treated only with papaverine, resulted in a temporary recovery in P DA and R S . These results indicate that the RAS and the acute humoral adrenergic response are both recruited during an acute hypotensive stress, and have important roles in the compensatory response to hypotension in rainbow trout. However, whereas the contribution of the RAS to P DA recovery is largely indirect and relies on an Ang IImediated secretion of catecholamines, the contribution from the adrenergic system is direct and relies at least in part on plasma catecholamines.