The mobile receptor hypothesis in hormone action: a general model accounting for desensitization.

The characteristics of the hormone interaction with their cell receptors and of the related adenylate cyclase activation are complex. Among the theoretical models which have been proposed to account for this mechanism, the mobile or floating receptor model has been discussed (3-5). The purpose of this work is to deduce several particular models from the general mobile receptor model on the basis of thermodynamic considerations. The analysis of some of these models shows that the mobile receptor hypothesis contains in itself the little understood kinetic phenomenon of hormone desensitization.