Regional mapping of the human renin gene to 1q32 by in situ hybridization

Renin, related to other aspartyl proteases, plays an important role in the cascade which regulates blood pressure and salt metabolism. A human renin 1 100 bp long cDNA including most of the coding region and the 3' non coding region has been subcloned by Soubrier et al., 1983. A 1000 b RNA probe derived by subcloning into pSP64 vector was hybridized to EcoRI and HindIII digests of the DNA of a panel of 24 man-rodent somatic cell hybrids. With HindIII, four restriction fragments were observed, two of them revealing polymorphism (8.4 kb and 6.0 kb). Analysis of the distribution of the human signal among the hybrids confirms the localization of the renin gene (REN) to human chromosome 1. The whole plasmid including the 1 100 bp long insert was used for regional mapping by in situ hybridization; 45% of silver grains were found on chromosome 1, with a clear peak at band 1q32 (33% of silver grains on chromosome 1) and a smaller one at band 1q42 (17%). These data favour a regional localization of the renin gene to 1q32-1q42. Mac Gill et al. (1987) have localized the REN gene to 1q25-1q32 using in situ hybridization. Thus, 1q32 could be the most probable localization. No other peak could be observed. This is in agreement with results obtained with somatic cell hybrids.