Prolactin stimulation test with perphenazine: an evaluation of plasma prolactin levels and pituitary secretory activity in the rat.

Many investigations of the regulation of prolactin synthesis and release are based on single plasma prolactin determinations. The purpose of the present experiment was to ascertain whether groups of rats (i.e. young or adult, male or female animals, being either intact, gonadectomized or gonadectomized and treated with oestrone), differing in age and/or endocrine status, will react to a single dose of perphenazine by an acute release of pituitary prolactin in proportion to their initial plasma prolactin levels. No consistent relation existed between the classification of the twelve groups of rats into three categories of basal plasma prolactin levels (i.e. less than 20, 25-50, greater than 125 ng/ml) and their response to perphenazine. Even though all groups showed a highly significant increase of plasma prolactin levels the magnitude of the maximum prolactin response at 30 min varied greatly within the groups of one category and thus was not related to the initial prolactin levels. The effect of 14 days of oestrone treatment in increasing plasma prolactin levels in gonadectomized animals was greatest in young and adult male rats, less in young females and not significant in adult females. The results obtained after perphenazine treatment in the latter group made it clear that the effect of oestrogen treatment on prolactin release can be completely blocked by increasing synthesis and/or release of the prolactin-release inhibiting factor (PIF). Since perphenazine induces decrease of pituitary prolactin and a concomitant increase of plasma prolactin levels through lowered PIF-action, the positive effect of oestrogens on prolactin release (as observed in gonadectomized male and young female rats) apparently is caused by a different mode of action. The implications of these findings for the regulation of prolactin release, as affected by the endocrine status of the rat, is discussed. Moreover, comparison of prolactin lost from the pituitary and gained in the circulation of the experimental animals, with amounts of prolactin that were observed to disappear from plasma during the experiment, provided suggestive evidence that the capacity to synthesize and/or eliminate prolactin, after a sudden provoked release of the hormone, differed among the groups. The rates of synthesis by the pituitary, of release from the pituitary into the circulation as well as of elimination of the hormone from the circulation (equally involved in determing actual plasma levels) are thought, therefore, to be far more important for the elucidation of prolactin regulation than single plasma prolactin determinations.