Renin in the Arterial Wall

Homogenates of rat aortic wall can generate angiotensin I when incubated with nephrectomised rat plasma. This renin-like activity is due to a mixture of proteolytic enzymes. Thus the capacity to generate angiotensin I is greater at pH 5.3 than pH 6.5, although the latter is the pH optimum for rat renal renin. The present work addresses itself to two questions. Is this activity derived from plasma renin? Secondly, does vascular renin-like activity play a role in blood pressure control? Plasma and aortic renin were altered by bilateral nephrectomy and modulation of salt intake. In addition four models of hypertension were studied (early and chronic Goldblatt 2-kidney 1-clip, DOC-salt and spontaneous hypertension). The results indicated that in steady state conditions, aortic and plasma renin-like activity (measured with an incubation pH of 6.5) changed in parallel. When plasma renin was altered acutely however by intravenous injection of renin into nephrectomised rats the half-life of plasma renin was much shorter than the half life of aortic renin. Under these circumstances the pressor response to renin correlated much better with aortic than with plasma renin-like activity. Whilst these studies suggest therefore that renin taken up by the arterial wall is an important determinant of blood pressure, they provide no evidence that accumulation of renin locally produces hypertension in the presence of normal or low plasma renin activity.