Measurement of plasma renin activity as a valid estimation of plasma angiotensin status

Measurement of plasma renin activity is widely used as an indirect assessment of plasma angiotensin II concentration. There has been some controversy over the validity of this assay as an estimate of circulating angiotensin II levels because, during the in vitro generation of angiotensin I by renin, over a period of time, substrate concentration may diminish to such an extent that it becomes rate-limiting, giving an artificially low reflection of angiotensin II levels. In this paper the initial angiotensin I concentration, that is the concentration before in vitro angiotensin I generation, has been compared with the corresponding plasma renin activity for 2752 individual plasma samples. A linear relationship was found between the initial angiotensin I concentration and the plasma renin activity below 60 ng ml-1 h-1. This indicates that, under the conditions of this assay, substrate does not appear to become rate-limiting except at exceedingly high levels of plasma renin activity. These results appear to provide further validation for the use of plasma renin activity measurement as a reflection of the concentration of circulating angiotensin II levels.