Histamine stimulates renin release from the isolated perfused rat kidney

Summary The renal effects of histamine, histamine receptor agonists and antagonists were studied in the isolated rat kidney, which was perfused with a synthetic medium at constant perfusion pressure in a single pass system.Histamine induced a concentration-dependent increase of renin release ranging from a two-fold increase at 0.5 M to a four-fold increase at 10 M. No change in renal vascular resistance, glomerular filtration rate and sodium excretion occurred. Histamine-H₂-antagonists (ranitidine and cimetidine) were more effective to block the response to histamine than was the histamine H₁-antagonist diphenhydramine.Histamine-H₂-agonists (impromidine and dimaprit, 2.5 M each) were potent stimulators of renin release, their effect was blunted by H₂-antagonists.The histamine-H₁-agonist pyridyl-2-ethylamine had a low stimulatory activity at 10 M final concentration, which may reflect partial H₂-agonistic effects.It is concluded that histamine stimulates renin release via H₂-receptor activation.Part of this work was presented at the 8th Internat. Congress of Pharmacology, Tokyo 1981