Effect of pulmonary and renal circulations on activity of atrial natriuretic factor.

The effect of passage through the pulmonary and renal circulation on the activity of extracted and synthetic atrial natriuretic factors was determined by monitoring the amount of the vascular relaxing activity surviving passage through the organ. When crude atrial extract was infused through isolated perfused lungs of the guinea pig, approximately 75% of its activity survived. The activity of a 23-amino acid synthetic atrial peptide was decreased 21% on passage through these lungs, but this loss of activity was not significantly different from the crude extract. Analogous experiments in vivo showed that passage through the pulmonary circulation of the dog did not alter the activity of either the crude atrial extract or of synthetic atrial peptide. In contrast to the lack of effect of the pulmonary circulation, approximately 80% of the activity of crude atrial extract and synthetic atrial peptide was removed by the isolated perfused kidney of the rabbit, and in vivo the dog kidney removed approximately 80% of the activity of both these atrial substances. By surviving transit through the pulmonary circulation, these materials exhibit a necessary property of a circulating hormone stored in the right atrium, and the fact that the renal circulation extracts most of these materials is consistent with the kidney being a target organ of this putative hormone.