1 To elucidate the role of acetylcholine and various autacoids in endothelin-I (ET-l)-induced contraction in human bronchus, the effects of various receptor antagonists were examined. In addition, the ability of ET-1 to stimulate the release of histamine, peptidoleukotrienes and prostanoids was determined. 2 ET-1 was a potent and effective contractile agonist in human bronchus, possessing similar potency and efficacy to leukotriene D4 (LTD4); EC50 (-log M): ET-1 = 7.76 ± 0.09, n = 7; LTD4 = 8.46 ± 0.53, n = 7; P>0.2; maximum response (% 10PiM pre-carbachol): ET-1 = 103.8 ± 17.4, n = 7; LTD4=95.5±9.3, n=7; P>0.6.3 The cyclo-oxygenase inhibitor, sodium meclofenamate (1 pM) or the potent and selective thromboxane receptor antagonist, SQ 29,548 (1 pLM) were without significant effect on ET-1 concentrationresponse curves. 4 In the presence of sodium meclofenamate (1 I1M), the muscarinic receptor antagonist, atropine(1 fLM), the platelet activating factor (PAF) receptor antagonist, WEB 2086 (1 jiM) or the combination of the Hi-histamine receptor antagonist, mepyramine (10#iM) and the leukotriene receptor antagonist, SK&F 104353 (10 pM), were without marked effect on ET-1 concentration-response curves. In addition, the combination of all four receptor antagonists did not antagonize ET-1-induced contraction.5 ET-1 (0.3 pM) did not stimulate the release of histamine or immunoreactive leukotrienes from human bronchus.6 ET-1 (0.3 f4M) significantly stimulated the release of prostaglandin D2 (PGD2), 9a, 11p PGF2 (PGD2 metabolite), PGE2, 6-keto PGF1, (PGI2 metabolite), PGF2,, and thromboxane B2 (TxB2) a lower concentration, 10 nM, was without effect on prostanoid release. The production of PGD2 was increased 7.5 fold, whereas the release of the other prostanoids was stimulated only about 1.6 to 2.7 fold. 7 These data provide evidence that ET-1 elicits contraction of human isolated bronchus predominantly via a direct mechanism with no significant involvement of the release of acetylcholine, leukotrienes, histamine or PAF. Although
IntroductionYanagisawa and co-workers described the isolation, purification, cloning and pharmacological characterization of a potent vasoconstrictor peptide, designated endothelin, which was released from porcine aortic endothelial cells (Yanagisawa et al., 1988). Endothelin is a 21-amino acid peptide, with two sets of intrachain disulphide bridges, which bears a close structural homology with the sarafotoxins, a group of snake venom toxins (Lee & Chiappinelli, 1988;Kloog et al., 1988). Subsequent research indicated that endothelin, named endothelin-1 (ET-1), is only one member of a family of mammalian endothelins; Thus, Inoue and co-workers cloned three distinct ET-related genes by screening a human genomic DNA library (Inoue et al., 1989). These three 21-amino acid peptides, which have only minor differences in amino acid sequence, were designated ET-1 (the orginal porcine/human ET), ET-2 (two amino acid substitution from ET-1) and ET-3 (six amino acid substitution from ET-1) (Yanagisawa & Ma...