Substance P activates rat colonic motility via excitatory and inhibitory neural pathways and direct action on muscles.

We studied effects of nicotinic, muscarinic, serotoninergic, dopaminergic, adrenergic, vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) antagonists, VIP, nitric oxide-synthase inhibitors and stimulators alone and in combination with tetrodotoxin on substance P (SP)-stimulated intraluminal tone of the isolated proximal, middle and distal rat colon. Tetrodotoxin significantly enhanced SP-stimulated intraluminal tonic pressure in the distal, but not in the middle and proximal colon. N omega-nitro-L-arginine methylester enhanced SP stimulation in all colonic segments, whereas L-arginine inhibited it partially and D-arginine did not affect it. Atropine and hexamethonium partially inhibited SP stimulation of the middle and distal colon. Tetrodotoxin completely abolished the effects of L-arginine, atropine and/or hexamethonium on SP stimulation. Propranolol, phentolamine, reserpine, telenzepine, naloxone, Mr 2266, a VIP antagonist (H9935) and ketanserin did not affect SP-induced colonic muscle stimulation. VIP strongly reduced SP-stimulated intraluminal pressure in all colonic segments. VIP(10-28), a putative VIP antagonist, produced similar inhibition of SP-stimulated intraluminal tonic pressure, but did not affect N omega-nitro-L-arginine methylester-induced enhancement of SP-stimulated intraluminal pressure in any segments. It is concluded that in the isolated rat colon SP-stimulated intraluminal pressure (mainly generated by circular muscles) by a direct action on colonic muscles over the whole colonic length and by simultaneous activation of neural cholinergic excitatory pathways in the middle and distal, of noncholinergic excitatory pathways in the proximal colonic segment, and by activation of nitric oxide-dependent inhibitory neural pathways. VIP seems not to be directly involved in this inhibitory pathway.