Enhancement of alpha- and beta-adrenoceptor responses by elevations in vascular tone in pulmonary circulation.

The influence of increases in vascular tone on responses to selective alpha 1- and alpha 2-adrenoceptor agonists, norepinephrine, epinephrine, and isoproterenol was investigated in the feline pulmonary vascular bed. Under resting tone conditions with constant pulmonary blood flow and left atrial pressure, intralobar injections of the alpha 1-adrenoceptor agonists, phenylephrine and methoxamine, and the alpha 2-adrenoceptor agonists, UK 14304 and B-HT 933, increased lobar arterial pressure. When pulmonary vascular resistance was raised to a high steady level, vasoconstrictor responses to the alpha 2-adrenoceptor agonists were markedly increased, responses to methoxamine were increased to a lesser extent, and pressor responses to phenylephrine and epinephrine were reversed. These vasodilator responses to phenylephrine and epinephrine at elevated vascular tone were blocked by propranolol. Moreover, after beta-adrenoceptor blockade, vasoconstrictor responses to phenylephrine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine were also greater at elevated tone than at resting tone. Vasodilator responses to the beta-adrenoceptor stimulant, isoproterenol, were enhanced at higher levels of vasoconstrictor tone and were blocked by propranolol and by albuterol, a selective beta 2-adrenoceptor antagonist. The enhanced vasoconstrictor responses to the alpha 2-adrenoceptor agonists were selectively blocked by yohimbine, whereas the enhanced responses to the alpha 1-adrenoceptor agonists and, for the most part, the vasoconstrictor responses to norepinephrine and epinephrine, were blocked by prazosin. The present data support the hypothesis that postjunctional alpha 1- and alpha 2-adrenoceptors mediating vasoconstriction and beta 2-adrenoceptors mediating vasodilation are present in the feline pulmonary vascular bed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)