Pharmacologic discrimination between receptor heterogeneity and allosteric interaction: resultant analysis of gallamine and pirenzepine antagonism of muscarinic responses in rat trachea.

The antagonism of muscarinic receptor-mediated contraction of rat trachea by a range of muscarinic antagonists was quantified by Schild and resultant analysis. Dose-response curves to carbachol, muscarine and oxotremorine were shifted to the right by gallamine and pirenzepine in a parallel manner with no change in maximal response ostensibly indicating simple competitive inhibition. However, Schild analysis indicated differences in the blockade and estimated pKb values with each agonist for both gallamine and pirenzepine. This suggested either that the responses to these three agonists were mediated by a heterogeneous receptor population in this tissue or that the blockade produced by gallamine and by pirenzepine was not competitive. Further Schild analysis with the muscarinic antagonists scopolamine, atropine, 4-diphenylacetoxy-N-methyl piperidine methiodide and (11 [(2-[(diethylamino)methyl]-1-piperidinyl]acetyl)-5,11- dihydro-6H-pyrido[2,3-b][1,4]benzodiazepine 6-one) with carbachol, muscarine and oxotremorine indicated simple competitive antagonism of a homogeneous population of muscarinic receptors. Therefore, the competitivity of binding of atropine, gallamine and pirenzepine with the scopolamine binding site was measured with the recently reported technique of resultant analysis. With this method the effect of various concentrations of the test antagonist on the antagonism produced by specified concentrations of the reference antagonist scopolamine was measured and the equilibrium dissociation constant of the test antagonist-receptor complex estimated. These data indicated that atropine and scopolamine bind to a common binding site on the muscarinic receptor, but that scopolamine and both gallamine and pirenzepine bind to mutually exclusive sites. This result is mine and pirenzepine are allosteric modulators of muscarinic receptors which bind at sites other than that utilized by agonists.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)