The effects of vasoactive intestinal polypeptide on the motility of human and guinea pig gallbladder.

The effects of several preparations of vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) on the motility of strips of human and guinea pig gallbladder were investigated in vitro. VIP (10(-12) to 10(-6) M) had no measurable effects on the spontaneous activity, resting tone or cholecystokinin-octapeptide induced tone of human gallbladder strips. However, VIP (10(-12) to 10(-6) M) caused biphasic effects on the tone of guinea pig gallbladder strips. At low concentrations (10(-12) to 10(-10) M) contractions were observed that became smaller at higher concentrations (10(-9) to 10(-8) M). At still higher concentrations (10(-7) to 10(-6) M) relaxations were elicited. It appears that VIP is not as potent a relaxant of gallbladder muscle as first described. Human gallbladder tissue was totally unresponsive to the VIP preparations tested.