Sadayoshi Itoh

Effect of dietary sodium intake on the metabolism of prostaglandins in the kidney in hypertensive patients

To investigate the role of renal prostaglandins (PGs) in the renal handling of sodium, urinary excretion of PGE, PGF2 alpha and PGF2 alpha MUM (main urinary metabolite of PGF2 alpha) were measured after various manipulations of dietary sodium intake in 8 hypertensive patients. A low sodium intake increased urinary excretion of PGF2 alpha MUM (p less than 0.05), but failed to change urinary excretion of PGE and PGF2 alpha. In contrast, a high sodium intake increased urinary excretion of PGE (p less than 0.01) and decreased urinary excretion of PGF2 alpha MUM (p less than 0.02). A low sodium intake decreased the ratio of urinary PGE/PGF2 alpha MUM and high sodium increased it (both p less than 0.001). There was a significant positive correlation between urinary excretion of sodium and that of PGE (p less than 0.001). Additional oral administration of potassium chloride did not change urinary excretion of PGs. These results may suggest that dietary sodium intake may be one of the regulators of the metabolism of PGs in the kidney, supporting the hypothesis that renal PGE has a natriuretic action in humans.

Renal kallikrein activity in spontaneously hypertensive rats

To assess possible roles of the renal kallikrein-kinin system in the development of spontaneous hypertension, we determined daily excretion of urinary total and active kallikrein in 6-week-old spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats for up to 2 weeks. We also evaluated the effect of aprotinin, a reversible inhibitor of kallikrein and other serine proteases, on the development of hypertension in the 6-week-old SHR on ordinary intakes of sodium or on sodium loading with 1% NaCl for up to 2 weeks. Active kallikrein was determined by its kininogenase activity, and the generated kinins were radio-immunologically measured. Total kallikrein was also determined by measuring kininogenase activity after inactive kallikrein had been activated with trypsin (200 micrograms/ml). Urinary active kallikrein excretion was significantly reduced in 7-week-old SHR (1.5 +/- 0.2 microgram/day compared to 2.8 +/- 0.3 micrograms/day in WKY, P less than 0.05) and in 8-week-old SHR (1.6 +/- 0.2 microgram/day compared to 3.2 +/- 0.4 micrograms/day in WKY, P less than 0.01). Urinary total kallikrein excretion was also reduced in the 7- and 8-week-old SHR whereas the ratio of active to total kallikrein did not change. In addition, renal contents of total and active kallikrein were significantly lower in the 8-week-old SHR than in the controls.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)