Urinary excretion of active kallikrein was determined every day (amidolytic assay) in 6 male Okamoto-Aoki spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and in 6 male normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY) from ages 3 to 6 weeks and from 12 to 16 weeks. The rats were placed into individual metabolic cages and allowed free access to food having normal sodium content and to tap water. Urinary kallikrein excretion (UKall V, nKat/24 h) was lower in 3-week-old SHR (7.8 +/- 1.4 nKat/24 h) than in WKY (15.5 +/- 2.3 nKat/24 h, p less than 0.01) at a moment when systolic blood pressure (BP) in SHR (85.5 +/- 4.0 mmHg) was already higher than in WKY (76.3 +/- 4.6 mmHg, p less than 0.01). The slope of the increase in kallikrein excretion from week 3 to week 6 was not different for SHR and WKY (y = 6.39 x - 12.09, r = 0.95 vs y = 7.49 x - 9.40, r = 0.93). In contrast, from week 12 to week 15, this slope was slightly negative for SHR (y = 1.08 x + 59.38, r = 0.66) and became significantly different (p less than 0.05) from the slope in WKY which remained positive (y = 5.09 x + 7.05, r = 0.48). The relation between kallikrein excretion and systolic BP was an exponential curve for both SHR and WKY. But the curve of SHR (y = 1.22.e0.03x, r = 0.91) was significantly different (p less than 0.01) from the curve of WKY (y = 1.08.e0.03x, r = 0.95). For each identical systolic BP, UKall V was always lower in SHR than in WKY.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)