Studies on responsiveness of hepatoma cells to catecholamines. III. Difference between the receptor-adenylate cyclase regulating systems in AH130 cells and cultured normal rat liver cells.

The responsiveness to three beta-adrenergic agonists, isoproterenol (IPN), epinephrine (Epi) and norepinephrine (NE) in AH13O cells was examined compared with that in normal rat liver cells which were cultured for 24 hr after collagenase digestion. As regards to the activation of adenylate cyclase in the cell homogenates, the relative affinity of the three agonists was in order of IPN greater than NE greater than Epi in AH130 cells and IPN greater than Epi greater than NE in cultured normal liver cells. While the efficacies of the three agonists were similar in cultured liver cells, those of NE and Epi were markedly lower than that of IPN in AH13O cells and were increased to the similar level of IPN by pretreatment with phentolamine, but not with prazosin. Clonidine inhibited the activation of adenylate cyclase by IPN in AH13O cells. When cells were preincubated with islet-activating protein (IAP), the activity of adenylate cyclase in the presence or absence of agonist in both cell lines increased. In IAP-treated AH13O cells, the efficacies of NE and Epi became close to that of IPN. Adenylate cyclase in IAP-treated AH13O cells was activated by GTP in a dose-dependent manner, but that in IAP-treated cultured liver cells was not. In the presence of IPN, biphasic (activatory and inhibitory) effects of GTP on the cyclase were observed, and the inhibitory phase was eliminated by the IAP-treatment in both cell lines.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)