Correlation between isoprenaline-stimulated synthesis of cyclic AMP and occurrence of beta-adrenoreceptors in immature erythrocytes from rats.

When increasing reticulocytosis (up to 80%) was induced in rats by treatment with acetyl-phenylhydrazine (up to 70 mg/kg on 3 consecutive days) synthesis of cAMP stimulated by isoprenaline in intact red blood cells and in the related membrane preparations increased up to 100-fold. At the same time the density of beta-adrenoreceptor sites (measured by ligand binding with (3H)(-)-dihydroalprenolol) in the related membrane preparations was only increased about 5-fold. There was however a linear correlation between the increase of isoprenaline-stimulated enzyme activity and the receptor density in membrane preparations. The results indicate that mature red cells contain beta-adrenoreceptor sites but little or not adenyl cyclase activity. Thus, during the maturation process of these cells, enzyme activity and receptor densities decrease at different speeds indicating a different turnover of these two entities of the cytoplasmic membrane.