Different activities of impromidine and related phenyl-(pyridylalkyl)guanidines at cardiac and gastric H2 receptors

Effects of histamine H2 receptor agonists and antagonists on the isolated guinea pig gallbladder

Histamine H2 receptor-mediated responses were examined on cholecystokinin-octapeptide (CCK-8)-precontracted guinea pig gallbladder in vitro, testing histamine and a series of specific histamine H2 receptor agonists and antagonists. Among the antagonists tested, zolantidine and compound SKF 92857 were previously shown to antagonize H2 receptor-mediated responses in the heart, but not in the stomach. Histamine, in the presence of the H2 receptor antagonist mepyramine (10 microM), and the H2 receptor agonists dimaprit, impromidine and amthamine, inhibited CCK-8 (3 nM)-induced contractions in a concentration-dependent fashion, with the following rank orders of potency: impromidine > amthamine > histamine > dimaprit (pD2 values were 6.73 +/- 0.04, 5.44 +/- 0.07, 4.64 +/- 0.04 and 3.71 +/- 0.05, respectively). The maximal relaxation produced by dimaprit was significantly lower than that produced by histamine, as well as by impromidine and amthamine, which behaved as full agonists. All the H2 receptor antagonists examined were able to inhibit amthamine-induced relaxation. Famotidine (pA2 = 7.09 +/- 0.26), zolantidine (pA2 = 6.54 +/- 0.11), compound SKF 92857 (pA2 = 6.58 +/- 0.13) and aminopotentidine (pA2 = 6.86 +/- 0.06) competitively antagonised the amthamine-induced effect, while iodoaminopotentidine produced surmountable antagonism only at low concentrations (1 microM, pA2 = 6.83 +/- 0.21). Finally, the slowly-dissociable antagonist loxtidine caused a non-parallel displacement to the right of the concentration--response curve to amthamine (pKB = 7.55 +/- 0.24), with a significant depression of the maximal response to the agonist, even at the lowest effective concentration (0.3 microM). In conclusion, histamine H2 receptors in guinea pig gallbladder resemble those of the heart, as regards their sensitivity to zolantidine and compound SKF 92857, which, by contrast, were unable to antagonize histamine effects at gastric H2 receptors in different experimental models.

Cardiac and gastric effects of histamine H2 receptor antagonists: no evidence for a correlation between lipophilicity and receptor affinity

1. A series of histamine H2 receptor antagonists with different lipophilicity were tested in cardiac and gastric assays in order to reveal possible differences in receptor affinity. Lipophilicity of the compounds was expressed as CLOG P (theoretically-determined logarithm of octanol:water partition coefficient) and log k' (logarithm of capacity factor, experimentally-determined by reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography). 2. Aminopotentidine (APT) and iodoaminopotentidine (I-APT), which are both lipophilic compounds, behaved as insurmountable antagonists of histamine responses in rat isolated gastric fundus (pKB = 6.20 +/- 0.16 and 6.89 +/- 0.19, respectively) and guinea-pig isolated papillary muscle (pKB = 6.34 +/- 0.37 and 6.81 +/- 0.26, respectively). They were approximately as effective as ranitidine (RAN) in reducing histamine-induced acid secretion in the anaesthetized rat, ID50 values being 0.018 +/- 0.02, 0.020 +/- 0.03 and 0.036 +/- 0.01 mumol kg-1 i.v. for APT, I-APT and RAN, respectively. Both APT and I-APT had a significantly longer duration of action than RAN. 3. The hydrophilic compound, SK&F 92857, was inactive up to 10 microM in modifying histamine-induced acid secretion in the isolated rat stomach. In the papillary muscle, low concentrations (0.1-1 microM) of this compound produced a competitive antagonism of the histamine responses (pA2 value = 7.38 +/- 0.11), while a higher concentration (10 microM) significantly reduced the maximal response to histamine. 4. RAN competitively antagonized histamine effects with a comparable affinity in cardiac and gastric preparations (pA2 values were 6.42 +/- 0.09 and 6.78 +/- 0.38 in heart and stomach, respectively). 5. Results obtained in this study clearly showed that the discrepancies between gastric and cardiac effects observed for some H2 antagonists are not explained solely by differences in lipophilicity of compounds. Moreover, the significant correlation found between CLOG P and log k' parameter, which takes into account, besides their lipophilicity, the ionization of the molecules, suggests that ionization has a similar influence for all the molecules on the partition between the lipophilic and aqueous phase.