Regulation of secretion of parathormone and secretory protein-I from separate intracellular pools by calcium, dibutyryl cyclic AMP, and (1)-isoproterenol.

Dispersed porcine parathyroid cells were incubated at calcium concentrations between 0.5 and 3.0 mM in the presence of 3H- or 14C-amino acids to label newly synthesized parathormone. Up to four times more hormone was secreted at the lower calcium concentration but its specific radioactivity, from 30 to 50 times that of the intracellular pool, did not change. Dibutyrl cyclic AMP doubled immunoactive parathormone secretion at each calcium concentration, but there was no increase in secretion of radioactive hormone if labeled amino acids and secretagogue were added simultaneously. Similarly, when the intracellular pool of parathormone was prelabeled with 3H-amino acids and then the cells were incubated in 14C-amino acids and dibutyryl cyclic AMP, the entire increase in hormone secreted was derived from the prelabeled pool. (1)-isoproterenol increased intracellular cyclic AMP and acted on hormone secretion in a manner indistinguishable from dibutyryl cyclic AMP. In similar double-label experiments dibutyryl cyclic AMP preferentially enhanced secretion of secretory protein-I, a calcium-regulated protein of the parathyroid of unknown function. Calcium, alone, inhibited the intracellular level of cyclic AMP in a concentration-dependent fashion. These data are consistent with the existence in the parathyroid cell preparation of two hormone and secretory protein pools that may be individually recruitable--one consisting of most recently synthesized protein, the other consisting of older "storage" protein. The data do not allow one to decide whether the two pools coexist within individual cells or whether, instead, they exist in separate cells of the dispersed gland preparation.