Studies directed toward labeling analysis of angiotensin II in plasma.

We assay a 1-mL plasma sample containing angiotensin II (103 pg by radioimmunoassay) for the hormone by the following sequence of steps: add 125I-labeled val5-angiotensin II as an internal standard, extract on a C18 Sep Pak column, extract on an antibody affinity column, label the extract with an 125I Bolton-Hunter reagent, separate on a Bio Gel P2 column, and repetitively separate on a reversed-phase "high-performance" liquid-chromatographic column, detecting the eluting compounds by counting radioactivity. The fact that we measured 46 pg of angiotensin II-like substance per milliliter in a sample of pooled plasma is encouraging for the further development of this methodology. In particular, replacing the radioisotope with a more suitable chemical label such as an electrophoric (electron-capturing) release tag should be useful.