Angiotensinogen gene expression in neuronal and glial cells in primary cultures of rat brain

Neuronal and glial cells in primary culture prepared from the hypothalamic-brain stem areas of one-day-old rat brains were analyzed for the presence of angiotensinogen messenger RNA (mRNA) to further confirm our previous conclusion that the brain contains an exclusive angiotensin system. Angiotensinogen mRNA was quantitated by Northern analysis using nick-translated angiotensinogen cDNA as the hybridization probe (Kunapuli and Kumar, 1987). Angiotensinogen mRNA sequences were present in the RNA isolated from both neuronal and glial cultures. Quantitative measurements of the mRNA using dot-blot analysis revealed that the level of angiotensinogen mRNA was three times higher in neuronal cultures compared with glial cultures. These observations provide the first evidence for the synthesis of angiotensinogen in neuronal as well as in glial cells form the brain.