Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol 75, Issue 1 93-102, Copyright © 1993 by American Physiological Society

ARTICLES

Analysis of responses to serotonin in the pulmonary vascular bed of the cat

T. J. McMahon, J. S. Hood, B. D. Nossaman and P. J. Kadowitz
Department of Pharmacology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112.

Pulmonary vascular responses to serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) were investigated in the intact-chest cat under constant-flow conditions. Injections of 5-HT into the perfused lobar artery in doses of 1-30 micrograms caused dose-related increases in lobar arterial pressure and, at doses of 3-30 micrograms, decreases in systemic arterial pressure. Left atrial pressure was not changed, and responses to 5-HT were not altered by a thromboxane receptor blocking agent. Responses to 5-HT were blocked by ketanserin in doses that did not alter responses to agonists that increase pulmonary vascular resistance by various mechanisms. The ketanserin-induced blockade was not surmountable and at a dose of 0.5 mg/kg iv persisted for > 4 h. Prazosin and yohimbine, selective alpha 1- and alpha 2-adrenoceptor antagonists, were without effect on the pressor response to 5-HT, and ketanserin did not reduce responses to norepinephrine or the alpha 1-agonists, phenylephrine and methoxamine. 5-HT and the thromboxane mimic, U-46619, produced large increases in pulmonary vascular resistance; however, U-46619 was 300 times more potent than 5-HT. 5-HT increased lobar arterial pressure when the lung was perfused with dextran, and increases in lobar arterial pressure in response to 5-HT were not diminished when lobar ventilation was interrupted but were enhanced by N omega-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester and to a small extent by meclofenamate. The present data suggest that increases in pulmonary vascular resistance in the cat in response to 5-HT are due to activation of an S2 receptor in undefined "resistance vessel elements." These data suggest that pulmonary vasoconstrictor responses to 5-HT may be modulated to a small extent by release of a vasodilator prostaglandin and endothelium-derived nitric oxide but are not dependent on activation of thromboxane receptors, changes in bronchomotor tone, and interaction with alpha 1-receptors or with formed elements in blood.

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