Effects of age and androgens upon functional vasoactive intestinal peptide receptors in rat prostatic epithelial cells.

The specific binding of vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and the stimulatory effect of VIP upon cyclic AMP accumulation in isolated epithelial cells of rat ventral prostate were age dependent. The number of VIP receptors decreased but the efficiency of VIP on cyclic AMP accumulation increased in prostatic epithelium when considering the periods 35-65 days and 3-6 months. Since these features could be related to the known age-related decrease of androgen and androgen-receptor levels, we studied the effect of testosterone and its 5 alpha-reduced metabolite dihydrotestosterone upon both steps of VIP action. The two steroid hormones exerted a non-competitive inhibition on VIP-induced cyclic AMP accumulation but did not modify VIP binding to its specific receptors. This modulatory effect of androgens might involve their interaction with specific sites on the cell membrane leading to modifications of membrane activities including adenylate cyclase, as has been suggested by an increasing number of recent reports.