A sensitive radioimmunoassay method for urinary kinins in man.

A sensitive and specific radioimmunoassay method for urinary kinins was developed, which uses antiserum against synthetic bradykinin in combination with labeled tyr/sup 8/-bradykinin. The assay detects as little as 6 pg per tube of bradykinin. The dose-response curves of bradykinin, lysyl-bradykinin (kallidin), and methionyl-lysyl-bradykinin were almost identical. This suggests that the values estimated with bradykinin as the standard exhibit the total urinary kinins which contain these three peptides. The assay was performed without extraction of urinary samples, since a chromatographic study demonstrated that no interfering substances in urine samples remain in our assay system. The urinary levels of total kinins in 10 normal male subjects, three male patients with chronic renal failure, and 12 male patients with essential hypertension were 37.9 +- 3.9 ..mu..g/day (mean +- S.E.M.), 9.0 +- 5.1 ..mu..g/day, and 24.2 +- 5.2 ..mu..g/day, respectively.