Functional opiate receptor in mouse vas deferens: Evidence for a complex interaction

Treatment of the isolated mouse vas deferens with the enzyme arylsulfatase (E.C. 3.1.6.1) had an effect on the ability of this tissue to response to various opiates. It increased the IC 50 values and slopes of their dose-response curve for enkephalins and their analogs, and shifted to the right the curves for FK33824, levorphanol and normorphine. There was no effect on the action of etorphine, ß-endorphin or dynorphin. With morphine there was a biphasic effect, IC 50 values increasing at low enzyme concentrations and decreasing at high enzyme concentrations. A further comparison of arylsulfatase effects on morphine and on D-Ala-2-D-Leu5-enkephalin indicated that the morphine effect, unlike the D-Ala 2-D-Leu 5-enkephalin effect, could not be reversed by washing and that morphine, unlike D-Ala 2-D-Leu 5-enkephalin, became much less sensitive to naloxone antagonism. The observed modifications in the shape of the dose-response curves indicate that the effect of the opiates in the mouse vas deferens is more complex than that expected through the occupation of a simple receptor. There is either more than one type of functional receptor for each agonist or only one receptor, which can interact with every drug in different ways; this complexity is discussed in terms of various possibilities, including fractional occupancy, positive cooperativity and multiple sites.