Research Article Heterogeneous Downregulation of Angiotensin II AT1-A and AT1-B Receptors in Arterioles in STZ-Induced Diabetic Rat Kidneys

Copyright © 2014 Zsolt Razga et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction.The renin granulation of kidney arterioles is enhanced in diabetes despite the fact that the level of angiotensin II in the diabetic kidney is elevated. Therefore, the number of angiotensin II AT1-A and AT1-B receptors in afferent and efferent arteriole’s renin-positive and renin-negative smooth muscle cells (SMC) was estimated. Method. Immunohistochemistry at the electron microscopic level was combined with 3D stereological sampling techniques. Results. In diabetes the enhanced downregulation of AT1-B receptors in the renin-positive than in the renin-negative SMCs in both arterioles was resulted: the significant differenc