Activation of renal renin by a protein plasma fraction: A novel enzymatic mechanism

A 3-fold increase in active renin was found after a kidney cortex extract was incubated with plasma from either normal or nephrectomized rats (0.34 ± 0.04 to 1.34 ± 0.08 and 1.60 ± 0.06 μg Angiotenson I/mg tissue/hr, respectively). A plasma protein that activates renal renin was purified 900-fold. Purification of the protein was achieved by a combination of ammonium sulfate fractionation, molecular filtration on Sephacryl S-200 HR and ion-exchange chromatography on Mono Q HR 5/5 associated to an fast performance liquid chromatography (FPLC) system. The protein shows a molecular weight of ∼54,000 Da. Renin activation was not inhibited by serine protease inhibitors, such as phenylmethyl sulfonylfluoride, aprotinin, soybean trypsin inhibitor and N-tosyl-L-phenylalanine chloromethyl ketone or by the cystein protease inhibitors N-ethylmaleimide and leupeptin. By using enzyme inhibitors, it was found that the activation process is not mediated by kallikrein, plasmin, tonin, cathepsin B or trypsin-like enzymes. From these results, we conclude that there is in circulating plasma a previously unidentified enzyme capable of activating inactive kidney renin. However, the possibility that this protein acts by activating the renin-substrate reaction cannot be dismissed.