Lack of Specificity of Commercial Antibodies Leads to Misidentification of Angiotensin Type-1 Receptor Protein

To the Editor: We agree with the report by Herrera et al1 demonstrating that antiangiotensin II type-1 receptor (AT1R) antibodies that are commonly used exhibit nonspecific binding that may lead to erroneous results. Because only 3 AT1R antibodies were used in the study, we would like to share our findings to support their conclusion. Antihemagglutinin antibody detected a major band (≈40 kDa) in human embryonic kidney cells expressing rat AT1AR fused with hemagglutinin tag at either amino terminus or carboxyl terminus but not in the control cells. The molecular weight is …