Effects of hypophysectomy and GH administration on bovine and human GH binding to rat liver membranes.

Experiments were conducted to investigate the specific binding of highly purified bovine and human growth hormones (bGH and hGH) to purified liver plasma membranes of male rats at various times after hypophysectomy and after the acute intravenous administration of bGH. Liver membranes prepared from hypophysectomized male rats showed a two- to threefold increase in the specific binding of either [125I]iodo-bGH or [125I]iodo-hGH, when compared with membranes prepared from the livers of age-matched normal male rats. The increase in GH binding was apparent within 3 days after hypophysectomy and persisted for a number of weeks after the operation. The increase in GH binding produced by hypophysectomy appeared to be due to an increase in the number of binding sites present on the membranes. The intravenous injection of 200 micrograms of bGH into hypophysectomized male rats 5-60 min before they were killed markedly reduced the ability of liver membranes prepared from these animals to bind [125I]iodo-bGH specifically. This decrease in GH binding seen after the injection of bGH may have been due to the development of a slowly dissociating hormone-binding site complex, which thereby reduced the number of available binding sites. This conclusion is supported by the finding that bGH, which is bound in vitro to isolated liver membranes, dissociates slowly and incompletely in the presence of an excess of unlabeled hormone. Moreover, the degree to which the bound hormone can dissociate appears to depend on the length of time that association is allowed to occur.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)