Rat renin promoter activity in cultured cells and transgenic mice

Renin, a key enzyme controlling blood pressure, is mainly synthesized in kidney. To characterize the rat renin promoter, we have constructed a reporter gene containing the 238-bp putative regulatory region linked to a bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT), and analyzed its promoter activity by in vitro transfection and introduction of the CAT fusion gene into germline of mice. CAT activity was detected in transfected embryonic kidney-derived 293 cells, but not in HeLa cells derived from cervical carcinoma, showing that the putative promoter region of the rat renin gene directs transcription in a cell type-dependent manner. To examine whether the sequence was sufficient to regulate the expression of the CAT chimeric gene in mice, we generated seven transgenic mice carrying the reporter construct. Unexpectedly, the transgene was not expressed in any of the independent transgenic mice examined. These results suggest one possibility that an additional control region may be required for efficient expression of the rat renin promoter in developing mice.