C-type natriuretic peptide system in rabbit colon.

C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP) is mainly distributed in the brain and vascular endothelium and is considered to act as a local regulator in many tissues. The present study was aimed to determine the presence of CNP system and its biological function in rabbit colon. The serial dilution curves of tissue extracts were parallel to the standard curve of CNP-22. With gel permeation chromatography and reverse-phase HPLC, the major immunoreactive peak of CNP was observed at the same elution time corresponding to the synthetic CNP-53. The concentration of CNP in the mucosal layer of colon was 212.49 +/- 30.44 pg/g tissue wet weight (n = 7), which was significantly higher than that in the muscular layer. The presence of CNP mRNA was also detected by RT-PCR and Southern blot analysis. Production of cGMP by the activation of particulate guanylyl cyclase stimulated by BNP and CNP was higher in membranes obtained from the muscular layer than from mucosal layer. More cGMP was produced by CNP than by ANP. Both natriuretic peptide receptor-A and -B mRNAs were detected by RT-PCR and specific binding sites to 125I-[Tyr(0)]-CNP-22 were mainly localized to the muscular layer. Synthetic CNP inhibited basal tension, frequency and amplitude of basal motility of taenia coli of the right colon. This study showing the presence of CNP system and its biological function in colon suggests that endogenous CNP synthesized in the mucosal layer may have a paracrine function as a local regulator of colonic motility.