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Angiotensin II, the effector peptide of the renin-angiotensin system, regulates cellular growth in response to developmental, physiological, and pathological processes. The identification of renin-angiotensin system components and angiotensin II receptors in cardiac tissue suggests the existence of an autocrine/paracrine system that has effects independent of angiotensin II derived from the circulatory system. To be functional, a local renin-angiotensin system should produce sufficient amounts of the autocrine and/or paracrine factor to elicit biological responses, contain the final effector (angiotensin II receptor), and respond to humoral, neural, and/or mechanical stimuli. In this review, we discuss evidence for a functional cardiac renin-angiotensin system.
Dostal et al. (1999) studied this question.