Phospholipase C activity and diglyceride lipase activity were studied in the renal cortex and medulla of 10- and 40-week-old stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP) and agematched normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY). Enhanced phospholipase C activity was found in the cortical and medullary cytosol of kidney from SHRSP, and microsomal diglyceride lipase in SHRSP also increased. In SHRSP, phospholipase C and diglyceride lipase activities increased with age, but this increase was not evident in WKY. Phospholipase C had high substrate specificity for phosphatidylinositol in renal cytosol of both WKY and SHRSP. The increased activities were accompanied by prostaglandin E2synthesis in renal medullary microsomes of 10-week-old SHRSP and were also present in the kidney of 40-week-old SHRSP. Total phospholipid and arachidonic acid contents in kidney were markedly high in the medulla of 10-week-old SHRSP, but these lipids were decreased in 40-week-old SHRSP. These results suggest that phospholipids and arachidonic acid in SHRSP may be genetically high and that the activated phospholipase C and diglyceride lipase hydrolyze phospholipids, providing arachidonic acid for prostaglandin synthesis, which results in a decrease of phospholipids and arachidonic acid in the kidney of 40-week-old SHRSP. These studies demonstrate that a phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C-prostaglandin synthetic system may play an important role in the course of hypertension in SHRSP.