Radioimmunoassay of angiotensin-II: methodology and standardization

The study was planned to set up and standardize the radioimmunoassay of Ang-II and to validate the procedure in terms of precision, sensitivity, specificity and recovery. The application of the developed assay was studied in normal healthy volunteers and in patients of renovascular hypertension (RVHT) and renal hypertension (RH). Synthetic human Ang-II was coupled to BSA by carbodimide condensation to get the hapten carrier conjugate which was injected in rabbits to raise the antibodies. The titre of 1:250 showed significant binding (56.79%) and was used for the assay. The sensitivity of the assay was 2 pg/ml and cross-reactivity with analogues of Ang-II was minimum. Mean Ang-II levels in normal subjects was 16 +/- 3.6 pg/ml. In patients of RVHT and RH, the peripheral blood Ang-II levels were found to be 876 +/- 8.6 and 108 +/- 2.3 pg/ml respectively. In patients of unilateral RVHT, renal vein Ang-II levels of the affected side were significantly higher than the unaffected side (P < 0.001). The results indicate that unextracted samples can be successfully utilized to estimate Ang-II levels.