Abstract:The antimigraine drug, sumatriptan, contracts the human coronary artery both in vivo and in vitro. Because sumatriptan has been associated with cardiac side effects, it is important to characterise the receptor involved in sumatriptan-induced coronary artery contraction. Using the agonists sumatriptan and 5-carboxamidotryptamine and the selective 5-HT 1B/1D receptor antagonist GR55562, we have investigated the involvement of 5-HT 1B/1D receptors in the contraction of the human isolated coronary artery. Contractions to sumatriptan (pEC 50 : 6.1∫0.2, maximal effect: 21∫4% of 100 mM K π -induced contraction) were competitively antagonised by GR55562. The pA 2 of GR55562 (7.40∫0.16) was in accord with its reported affinity at the human 5-HT 1B receptor. Since the contractions to 5-carboxamidotryptamine did not reach a maximum with the highest concentration used (10 mM), pEC 50 values could not be calculated for Schild analysis. However, using the pEC 10%Kπ values (negative logarithm of the concentration needed to induce 10% of the contraction to 100 mM K π ), GR55562 proved a less potent antagonist against 5-carboxamidotryptamine than against sumatriptan. These results show that sumatriptan contracts the human isolated coronary artery via 5-HT 1B/1D receptors, most probably the 5-HT 1B subtype. 5-Carboxamidotryptamine may contract the human isolated coronary artery, at least partly, via a novel yet to be characterised, receptor.The human coronary artery contracts in response to the antimigraine drug, sumatriptan, both in vivo (MacIntyre et al. 1993) and in vitro (Connor et al. 1989;Bax et al. 1993;Maassen Van Den Brink et al. 1998). Since sumatriptan has been associated with myocardial infarction (Ottervanger et al. 1993;O'Connor & Gladstone 1995) and cardiac arrest (Kelly 1995) in exceptional cases, it is important to characterise the receptors involved in sumatriptan-induced contraction of the human coronary artery. More knowledge about the receptor mediating coronary artery contraction to sumatriptan may contribute to the development of antimigraine drugs devoid of coronary vasoconstrictor activity.Sumatriptan displays affinity for the 5-HT 1B (pK i : 7.8-8.0), 5-HT 1D (pK i : 8.1-8.5) and the 5-HT 1F (pK i : 7.8-7.9) receptor (Leysen et al. 1996;Razzaque et al. 1999). Human isolated coronary artery contraction to 5-HT is mediated via both 5-HT 1 and 5-HT 2 receptors (Connor et al. 1989;Bax et al. 1993). The contraction mediated by the 5-HT 2 receptor usually exceeds that mediated by 5-HT 1 receptors (Connor et al. 1989;Bax et al. 1993). In some cases, however, 5-HT 1 receptor-mediated contraction is predominant over the 5-HT 2 receptor-mediated contraction (Kaumann et al. 1994). In agreement with the variable contribution of 5-HT 1 receptors in 5-HT-mediated contraction, the contraction to sumatriptan is subject to a high degree of variability Author for correspondence: P. R. Saxena, Department of Pharmacology, Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherland...