Adenyl cyclase and hormone action. I. Effects of adrenocorticotropic hormone, glucagon, and epinephrine on the plasma membrane of rat fat cells.

A large number of hormones, of diverse molecular structure, evoke characteristic responses in target cells via the intermediary 3',5'-AMP, the specificity of hormone action upon cell type being achieved by selective stimulation of adenyl cyclase. In the fat cells of rat adipose tissue, adenyl cyclase is stimulated by a number of hormones of disparate molecular structure, posing the question whether this cell type posesses multiple cyclase systems with distinctive specificities for individual hormones, or a single cyclase with broad specificity to a variety of hormones. Studies of the stimulatory effects of adenocorticotropin, glucagon, and epinephrine upon the adenyl cyclase of the rat fat cell "ghosts" (plasma membrane sacs) have shown that distinctive selectivity sites for each of these hormones can be differentiated. The beta-adrenergic blocking agent Kö 592 abolished the stimulatory effect of epinephrine without influencing adenocorticotropin or glucagon; Ca was required for adenocorticotropin action, but not for glucagon or epinephrine. Dose-response curves show that the affinity of hormones to the cyclase system was in the order: glucagon > adenocorticotropin >> epinephrine; the magnitude of cyclase activation by maximal doses of hormones had a reversed order. Combinations of maximal doses of hormones failed to produce additive stimulation. The results show that in the membrane of the fat cell a single catalytic unit of adenyl cyclase is coupled to distinctive selectivity sites for three lipolytic hormones.