Novel Variants of Angiotensin Converting Enzyme-2 of Shorter Molecular Size to Target the Kidney Renin Angiotensin System

Wysocki, Jan; Schulze, Arndt; Batlle, Daniel

To study the effect of small rACE2 variants on Ang II-induced hypertension, we injected 10-20 week old male C57bl/6 mice i.p. with either vehicle (PBS), mouse rACE2 1-619 or mouse rACE2 1-605 (both 1 µg/g of body weight). After 1 h, mice were anesthetized with an i.p. injection of ketamine (150 mg/kg of body weight). Mice were then placed on a temperature-controlled platform for 10 min immediately after anesthesia was induced. Systolic BP was monitored noninvasively every 30 s for a period of 20 min, as previously described [6, 7] . After five minutes of baseline SBP recording, acute hypertension in anesthetized mice was induced with an i.p. bolus injection of Ang II (0.2 mg/kg of body weight), and the SBP was monitored in a consecutive mode, at the same 30 s intervals throughout the remaining 15 min time period.