AGT and chronic kidney disease: To explore how kidney afferent signals trigger the local RAS activation in HF and CKD, AGT gene transcription in the SFO was assessed by determining dephosphorylation of CRTC1 that is a transcriptional coactivator of nuclear transcriptional factor CREB for AGT,37,38 and the binding of active CRTC1 to phosphorylated CREB.