Relation between pharmacological response and receptor binding with histamine blocking drugs. Irreversible antagonism of three analogues of mifentidine on right atrium and cerebral cortex of the guinea-pig.

The effects of the H2-receptor antagonists cimetidine, ranitidine, mifentidine and three analogues of mifentidine, were studied on the spontaneously beating right atrium (H2-antagonism) and membranes of the cerebral cortex (displacement of 3H-tiotidine), both obtained from the male guinea-pig. The choice of these compounds was based on preliminary experiments in which some mifentidine analogues were shown to displace tiotidine from the H2-receptor in a deviant manner. In the present study we investigated the relation between pharmacological response and receptor binding, also testing the degree of irreversible antagonism of these compounds in the atrium (functional) and cerebral cortex (binding) model. Our data indicate that a relation between the two different approaches for measuring the effect on the H2-receptor can be found, although some differences emerged as well.