Background The relationship between cyclosporine-induced chronic nephrotoxicity (CAN) and renin-angiotenein Ⅱ in humans is still contradictory. This study was conducted to detect the levels of renin and angiotensin Ⅱ (ANGII) both in renal tissue and plasma from kidney transplantation patients suffering from CAN.Methods Twenty-six patients with allograft biopsy-proven CsA-related chronic nephrotoxicity (CAN group) and chronic rejection (control group) were enrolled in this study. Renal tissues were subjected to immunohistochemical staining with renin and ANGII antibodies. Renin and ANGII plasma levels were measured when the biopsy was performed. The relationship between expression of renin or ANGII and clinicopathological manifestations were also investigated. The cyclosporine plasma level was obtained 2 hours after ming dose (C2). In vitro, human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and rat mesangial cells (MC) were incubated with different concentrations of CsA (0, 250, 500, 1000 μg/L) for 24 hours. Secretion and expression of renin and ANGII was measured by radioimmunoassay or immunohistochemical staining.Results Renal pathological scores for renin and ANGII expression were significantly higher in specimens of CAN than in controls (P＜0.05). The plasma levels of renin, ANGII and C2 in the CAN group were higher than the control group, but no significant difference was found ((0.37±0.12) ng.ml-1·h-1 vs (0.20±0.10) ng.ml-1·h-1, P=0.076; (122.69±26.73) pg/ml vs(121.88±36.35) pg/ml, P=0.977; (719.04±55.89) ng/ml vs (658.80±90.78) ng/ml, P=0.196, respectively). In vitro, renin as well as ANGII expression increased significantly in both HUVEC and MC after the cells were incubated with CsA for 24 hours (P ＜0.05). CsA also stimulated the secretion of ANGII in HUVEC and MC in a dose-dependent manner.Conclusions Renal allograft biopsy is important to differentiate chronic CsA-related nephropathy from chronic rejection. The intrarenal renin angiotensin system plays an important role in CsA-related chronic nephropathy. The histological lesions of CsA nephrotoxicity fail to correspond spontaneously to either the change of C2 level or the change of renin and ANGII plasma level. CsA stimulates the secretion of ANGII and the expression of renin and ANGII in HUVEC and MC. Blockage of RAS may be helpful for therapeutic intervention in the progression of CsA-related chronic nephropathy.