The humoral hypercalcemia of malignancy factor (also called PTH-related protein or PTHrp) has been shown to produce effects similar to PTH in the kidney, bone, and cardiovascular system. Binding of PTHrp and PTH has been characterized in renal and osseous tissues, but not in vascular tissue. We have attempted to characterize the interaction of both human PTHrp and rat PTH to renal microvessels as a model of vascular smooth muscle and in a renal tubule preparation from the same rabbit kidneys. Previous studies have shown the microvessel and tubule preparations to be distinct based upon morphological examination, differential enzyme markers, calcitonin and vasopressin-sensitive adenylate cyclase distribution, and different characteristics of guanine nucleotide and of oxidized PTH activation of the adenylate cyclases associated with the preparations. Human PTHrp and rat PTH were iodinated by standard techniques and purified by HPLC. Both ligands bound to microvessels and tubules in a saturable, specific manner, Maximal specific binding of either ligand was 65-75% in microvessels and 80-90% in renal tubules. The time courses of binding of both ligands were identical with steady state achieved within 20 min in the smooth muscle of microvessels and 15 min in the tubules at 22 C. In equilibrium competition binding experiments, bound 125I-PTHrp was displaced by both PTHrp and PTH in microvessels and tubules. Rat PTH displayed slightly higher affinity in microvessels and tubules than PTHrp. Identical results were obtained with 125I-PTH as ligand. Specificity of binding of PTHrp and PTH to both microvessels and tubules was excellent, with competition observed between the radioactive ligand and bovine and rat PTH, PTHrp, and the antagonists, [Nle8,18, Tyr34]bovine PTH and [Nle8,18, Tyr34]bovine PTH but not with several other peptides of unrelated structure. The only major difference in binding between microvessels and tubules was a smaller number of binding sites in microvessels compared to tubules. These results indicate that vascular tissue contains receptor sites for PTH and PTHrp as identified by radioligand binding techniques. These receptors are similar in characteristics to the receptors of renal tubular tissue. Both PTH and PTHrp appear to interact with the receptors of rabbit kidney microvessels and tubules.