One of the long-standing puzzles in hypertension research concerns the role of the immune system in driving high blood pressure and the organ damage that accompanies it. Myeloid cells, the family of innate immune cells that includes monocytes, macrophages, and neutrophils, have been widely implicated in the inflammatory processes that link elevated angiotensin II to injured blood vessels, hearts, and kidneys. According to a recent review of the field, these cells are thought to contribute to hypertension by promoting vascular inflammation, fostering the activation of T cells, and even influencing how the kidney retains sodium. If myeloid cells are indeed culprits, then the molecular brakes that restrain their signaling should matter enormously for blood pressure control.
Enter RGS2, or regulator of G-protein signaling 2, a protein that has fascinated cardiovascular physiologists for more than two decades. RGS2 acts as a negative regulator of Gq-coupled receptors, and chief among its targets is the angiotensin II type 1 receptor, or AT1R, the receptor through which angiotensin II executes many of its pressor and remodeling effects. Mice engineered to lack RGS2 throughout the body develop severe hypertension and prolonged vasoconstrictor signaling, and reduced RGS2 expression has been documented in hypertensive patients, where it correlates with exaggerated calcium mobilization and ERK1/2 phosphorylation in response to angiotensin II. RGS2 is also abundantly expressed in myeloid cells, which raises an intriguing paradox: if immune cells promote hypertension and RGS2 restrains angiotensin II signaling, should removing RGS2 specifically from myeloid cells unleash worsened hypertensive disease?
A team led by Nakagawa and colleagues set out to answer precisely that question. Using an elegant conditional knockout strategy, they generated mice in which RGS2 was selectively ablated in myeloid cells, a model designated RGS2 LysM-KO, and then challenged these animals with chronic angiotensin II infusion. The expectation, shared by the investigators themselves and by much of the field, was that loss of the AT1R brake in macrophages and related cells would amplify inflammatory signaling and thereby exacerbate hypertension and cardiovascular-renal injury.
The results defied those expectations. Across every measure the researchers examined, the myeloid-specific RGS2 knockout mice behaved essentially like their normal counterparts. Blood pressure responses to chronic angiotensin II were indistinguishable between the groups. Cardiac and renal damage, typically hallmarks of sustained pressor challenge, did not differ. Vascular dysfunction was unchanged, and inflammatory profiles failed to reveal any meaningful divergence attributable to the loss of myeloid RGS2. The authors concluded that myeloid RGS2 is not involved in angiotensin II-induced hypertension or cardiovascular-renal organ damage, a finding with significant conceptual implications.
Perhaps the most important implication is what the study says about the devastating hypertension of whole-body RGS2 deficiency. If deleting the protein in immune cells accomplishes nothing, then the severe, damaging hypertension seen when RGS2 is absent everywhere must be driven exclusively by altered RGS2 signaling in vascular and renal epithelial tissues rather than by the immune system. The brake that matters, in other words, is the one applied within the blood vessel wall and the kidney tubule, not the one applied inside infiltrating macrophages. This reallocation of responsibility helps sharpen where therapeutic efforts to modulate RGS2 signaling should be aimed.
Writing in a linked commentary in the same journal, Lorenzo A. Calò, Martina Cacciapuoti, and Paul A. Davis place these murine findings in a striking human context. Their laboratory has long studied Gitelman’s and Bartter’s syndromes, rare genetic tubulopathies caused by defects in specific kidney transporters and ion channels. These disorders are, in a sense, the mirror image of hypertension: they represent human models of endogenous angiotensin II signaling antagonism. Patients with Gitelman’s or Bartter’s syndrome display marked activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, with high circulating levels of both angiotensin II and aldosterone, yet despite this hormonal surge they present with hypotension or normotension rather than hypertension.
The clinical paradox deepens on closer inspection. Beyond their low blood pressure, patients with these syndromes show hyporesponsiveness to pressor agents and display activation of antiatherosclerotic and antiremodeling defenses. Their vascular biology features reduced Rho kinase signaling, increased nitric oxide bioavailability, and diminished oxidative stress and oxidative stress-related signaling, all in the face of elevated angiotensin II. Something powerful is damping down the signaling that angiotensin II normally delivers through the AT1 receptor, and the commentary authors argue that RGS2 is a central player in this endogenous antagonism.
The cellular evidence they have accumulated is compelling. In fibroblasts derived from patients with Gitelman’s and Bartter’s syndromes, both RGS2 RNA and protein abundance are increased compared with cells from healthy normotensive subjects. Functionally, this elevated RGS2 blunts angiotensin II signaling at multiple levels: it attenuates short-term signaling, including intracellular calcium release and the calcium-protein kinase C pathway in vascular smooth muscle cells, and it also dampens long-term proliferative and profibrotic responses that drive remodeling. Most tellingly, when the researchers silenced RGS2 in fibroblasts from these patients, the cells reverted to a hypertensive-like angiotensin II response, characterized by increased intracellular calcium release and ERK1/2 phosphorylation. In other words, removing the RGS2 brake in human cells restores the very signaling signature that defines hypertensive disease.
Taken together, the mouse knockout study and the human syndrome data demonstrate that RGS2 regulation of angiotensin II signaling through the Gq/AT1R axis, and its downstream consequences for hypertension and cardiovascular-renal remodeling, differ substantially depending on the level and the location of the RGS2 system being probed. A brake present in immune cells appears dispensable for pressor responses in mice, whereas abundant RGS2 in vascular cells of patients with inherited angiotensin signaling antagonism exerts profound hypotensive and antiremodeling effects. Context, cellular identity, and tissue distribution are everything. The findings caution against assuming that a regulatory protein implicated in immune-driven inflammation will necessarily shape blood pressure outcomes when manipulated within the immune compartment.
The commentary authors look forward to future work from the Nakagawa group addressing the major limitations acknowledged in the study, including the angiotensin II doses and time points employed and the need for more selective targeting methods for myeloid-specific ablation. Such refinements could reveal subtler roles for myeloid RGS2 that the current model missed, or they could further cement the conclusion that the vascular and renal epithelium are where RGS2 truly determines the course of hypertensive disease. Either way, the convergence of a clean genetic experiment in mice with mechanistic insights from rare human syndromes offers a unusually clear picture of how one small regulatory protein helps set the tone of the renin-angiotensin system, and why understanding where a molecule acts matters as much as knowing what it does.
Subject of Research: The role of RGS2 regulation of angiotensin II signaling in hypertension and cardiovascular-renal remodeling
Article Title: Although myeloid‐cell RGS2 knockout does not affect Ang II–induced hypertension/organ damage in mice, high RGS2 in Gitelman/Bartter syndromes—human models of endogenous Ang II signaling antagonism—is associated with hypotensive/antiremodeling effects
Article References: Calò, L. A., Cacciapuoti, M., & Davis, P. A. (2026). Although myeloid‐cell RGS2 knockout does not affect Ang II –induced hypertension/organ damage in mice, high RGS2 in Gitelman/Bartter syndromes—human models of endogenous Ang II signaling antagonism—is associated with hypotensive/antiremodeling effects. Physiological Reports, 14(18), Article e71110. https://doi.org/10.14814/phy2.71110
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.14814/phy2.71110
Keywords: RGS2, angiotensin II, hypertension, myeloid cells, Gitelman syndrome, Bartter syndrome, AT1 receptor, blood pressure, vascular remodeling, G-protein signaling, Although, myeloid
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Drew Townsend. (September 22, 2026). Immune Cells Cleared in Mouse Hypertension Mystery, but Human Evidence Points to RGS2. Scienmag. https://scienmag.com/immune-cells-cleared-in-mouse-hypertension-mystery-but-human-evidence-points-to-rgs2/
Drew Townsend. “Immune Cells Cleared in Mouse Hypertension Mystery, but Human Evidence Points to RGS2.” Scienmag, 22 September 2026, https://scienmag.com/immune-cells-cleared-in-mouse-hypertension-mystery-but-human-evidence-points-to-rgs2/. Accessed 22 September 2026.
Drew Townsend. “Immune Cells Cleared in Mouse Hypertension Mystery, but Human Evidence Points to RGS2.” Scienmag. September 22, 2026. https://scienmag.com/immune-cells-cleared-in-mouse-hypertension-mystery-but-human-evidence-points-to-rgs2/
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