An early change following mild renal ischemia is the loss of the renal microvilli, which then regenerate morphologically within 6 h. We studied microvillar regeneration in rats with 25 min of renal artery occlusion and subsequent reflow. At subsequent intervals the rats were injected intraperitoneally with [14C]choline and [3H]leucine; 25 min later they were killed and their renal brush border membranes isolated. At 30 min of reflow of blood there was a 77% reduction in the incorporation of [3H]leucine into microvillar protein compared with that of the opposite control kidney (P less than 0.02). The incorporation rose to normal within 60 min. At 30 min of reflow, the incorporation of [14C]choline into phospholipids increased twofold (P less than 0.005), then returned toward normal values after 2 h. The altered incorporation of tracers was not due to change in membrane turnover or substrate pools. The activities of alkaline phosphatase, gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, and alpha-glucosidase decreased 50% following ischemia (P less than 0.02) and returned to control values within 2 h. Thus, renal damage severe enough to partly efface microvilli is repaired metabolically within several hours.

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