Inhibition of human renin by synthetic peptides derived from its prosegment

The primary structure of human preprorenin has recently been determined from its cDNA sequence. It includes a 46-amino acid NH2-terminal prosegment. Six peptides corresponding to the entire prosegment (9-40), except for the NH2-terminal (1-8) and COOH-terminal (41-46) ends have been synthesized. These peptides were tested for their inhibitory effect on human plasma renin activity. Boc-Tyr-Thr-Thr-Phe-Lys-Arg-Ile-Phe-Leu-Lys-Arg-Met-Pro-OMe (where Boc represents t-butoxycarbonyl and OMe represents methoxy) (h Y(9-20) and its fragment Boc-Leu-Lys-Arg-Met-Pro-OMe h (16-20) were the most potent inhibitors with IC50 values of 2 X 10(-4) and 3 X 10(-4)M, respectively. Peptides located near the COOH-terminus were less inhibitory. The inhibitory capacity of h (16-20) was studied further on highly purified human renin acting on either pure human angiotensinogen or a synthetic human tetradecapeptide substrate. In both of these assays its inhibitory potency was about 10-fold greater than that found on plasma renin activity. Peptide h (16-20) was 3-6 times less potent in inhibiting human renin than its mouse counterpart m (15-19) was in inhibiting mouse renin. Kinetic studies carried out with h (16-20) showed a mixed type of inhibition. When human angiotensinogen was used as substrate, Ki and K'i values were 17.7 +/- 3.9 and 2.9 +/- 0.9 microM, respectively. These studies showed that human renin, like mouse renin and pepsin, can be inhibited by peptides derived from its prosegment. In addition, as in the case of pepsin, they suggest that the NH2-terminal part of the prosegment interacts more strongly with the active enzyme.