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Estimation of urinary kininogenase activity by radioimmunoassay of generated kinin was studied. Bovine serum low molecular weight kininogen was proved not to cross-react with kallidin antibody and also bradykinin antibody. This kininogen was used as substrate measuring urinary kininogenase activity. Separation of released kinin from the kininogen was not required in the present method. Urinary kallikrein activity was found to be significantly decreased in essential hypertension, in chronic glomerulonephritis and in patients who had received renal transplantation. On the contrary, an increase in urinary kallikrein was found in primary aldosteronism and in Bartter’s syndrome. The present method was very useful for measuring kininogenase activity.

During embryonic life the thymic rudiment is extensively seeded by invading hemopoietic precursors that give rise to mature T cells (1). In birds thymus, colonization by precursor cells is limited to two defined time periods of embryonic development (2). The first hemopoietic precursor cells appear at day 5 in the thymus of quail embryos. At this stage of development the precursors were enriched in the perithymic region. These precursors are often in contact with endothelial cells of the jugular vein, a prefered site of extravasation; they are also dispersed within the mesenchymal tissue around the thymus, and adhere to the basal lamina that separates the thymus from the mesenchyme (3).