Interaction of enkephalin and caerulein on guinea pig small intestine.

This is a report on the effect of caerulein and methionine-enkephalin interaction on mechanical contraction and acetylcholine release in vitro. The ability of enkephalin to relax caerulein-induced contractions and the manner in which the caerulein dose-response curve was shifted in the presence of enkephalin strongly suggest that enkephalin and caerulein are functional antagonists in this system. The failure of enkephalin to alter the action of exogenous acetylcholine implies that such an antagonism is not mediated through a competition with postsynaptic muscarinic receptors on the muscle. Data from acetylcholine-release studies indicate that caerulein stimulation was dose related. As with the mechanical contractions, the release of acetylcholine in response to caerulein was inhibited by enkephalin. However, naloxone was capable of blocking this inhibition and restoring the release to its control level without interfering with caerulein stimulation. These data provide evidence for the modulatory roles of neuronal peptides in the cholinergic control of gut motility.