Ontogeny of pepsin secretory response to secretagogues in isolated rat gastric glands.

By use of isolated gastric glands from rats at various ages, we demonstrated that full-term neonate and 1-day-old rats showed no response to cholecystokinin octapeptide (CCK-OP), carbachol, or Ca2+ ionophore. The same glands, however, were responsive to dibutyryl cAMP. A mature response was not found until the pups were 2 days old. Injection of hydrocortisone into newborn rats led to an increase in pepsinogen concentrations in gastric glands and also an increased responsiveness to CCK-OP, carbachol, and Ca2+ ionophore A23187 24 h after administration. Hydrocortisone thus caused precocious maturation of both pepsinogen accumulation and pepsinogen secretory responsiveness of gastric glands in rat pups.