Purification of hog kidney renin with immobilized monoclonal antirenin.

Spleen cells from mice immunized with partially purified hog kidney renin were fused with mouse myeloma cells to produce a stable monoclonal hybridoma cell line that synthesizes an antibody against renin. A single monoclonal antibody was chosen for study and has been produced in large quantity and purified by affinity chromatography on protein A-Sepharose. The antirenin, which belongs to the IgG1 subclass, exhibits anticatalytic activity against both hog and rabbit renin. An immunoaffinity column prepared from antibody coupled to Sepharose has been used in the purification of renin from hog kidney. Although renin is quantitatively adsorbed from solution, it can be eluted from the column under gentle conditions. The highly purified renin, with specific activity of 2122 Goldblatt Units/mg protein, exhibits both charge (pH 4.1 to 5.1) and size (38,000 to 42,700) heterogeneity. Hog kidney renin dissociates in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and mercaptoethanol to heavy and light chains with molecular weights of 33,700 and 5,800, respectively. In the presence of SDS, a small amount of a nw form of renin is observed with a molecular weight of 19,500 which retains activity on renaturation. The monoclonal antibody should be a useful tool for the study of the renin-angiotensin system and especially for the purification of renin. The hybridoma cell line used in this study (F-32 VIII C4) has been donated to the American Type Culture Collection.