3H-Ouabain binding to human mononuclear leucocytes.

Specific binding of cardiac glycosides to intact human blood cells may be a suitable model for physiological or disease-induced changes in cardiac glycoside binding to human heart muscle. Since the erythrocyte contains no nucleus and has relatively few binding sites compared with heart muscle, intact mononuclear leucocytes were investigated in the present study. Using leucocyte suspensions from 34 normal subjects, 133 measurements of 3H-ouabain binding-were obtained. 3H-Ouabain bound to one type of binding site with an affinity (KD) of 2.8 +/- 1.2 X 10(-9) M, similar to that of human heart muscle. Association and dissociation were slow processes (k+1, 3.9 X 10(4) M-1 sec-1; k-1, 8.1 X 10(-5) sec-1, n = 2). The number of ouabain binding sites/leucocyte varied from 18,000 to 60,000 (mean +/- SD, 34,600 +/- 9,700), with no correlation with the proportion of monocytes present or with the serum K+-level of the donors. Large inter- and intra-individual differences in binding site number were measured which are probably a result of the heterogeneity of the cell suspension used. Thus, the ouabain binding site on human heart muscle and intact mononuclear leucocytes is probably identical. However, the number of binding sites in mixtures of mononuclear leucocytes shows large and inconsistent intraindividual variations, making these studies unsuitable for quantifying drug- or disease-induced changes in ouabain binding site number.