Abstract

Adenosine, acting at A1 and A2 purine nucleoside receptors, regulates the physiology of many tissues. Myometrial smooth muscle from pregnant guinea pigs, which is contracted by the actions of adenosine, possesses an A1 receptor whose agonist affinity is regulated by guanine nucleotides. In addition to its expected effect on the affinity of the A1 receptor for agonist, the addition of guanine nucleotide also dramatically increases antagonist binding by as much as 62%. This action of guanine nucleotides on adenosine A1 receptors is common to many smooth muscle preparations and suggests the possibility that GTP-binding proteins might alter the conformation of the adenosine receptor in such a way that receptors not previously able to bind ligands are recruited by the guanine nucleotide. Such an action of guanine nucleotides would alter our general view of the interaction of antagonists with GTP-binding protein coupled receptors, as well as bear significantly on the interpretation of experimental data designed to characterize purinergic receptors. Thus, we have investigated the actions of guanosine-5'-O-[3-thiotriphosphate] on A1 adenosine receptor binding in membranes prepared from pregnant guinea pig myometrium containing 61% right-side-out vesicles. We show that guanosine-5'-O-[3-thiotriphosphate] lowers the affinity of adenosine A1 receptors for agonist in vesicles leading to increased competition of antagonist radioligand for receptor. We suggest that the endogenous adenosine we measure originates from breakdown of significant amounts of adenine nucleotides present in membranes vesicles. Furthermore, we demonstrate that opening membrane vesicles to remove trapped adenosine yields maximal antagonist radioligand binding without subsequent effects of guanosine-5'-O-[3-thiotriphosphate]. We conclude that the presence of endogenous adenosine, unavailable to the actions of adenosine deaminase, is responsible for the effect of guanine nucleotides to increase antagonist binding to adenosine A1 receptors.