Nitrendipine: effects on vascular responses and myocardial binding.

We have further defined the binding characteristics of [3H]nitrendipine to myocardial microsomal membranes of cats, dogs, rats, and rabbits and to canine coronary vasculature (1.5-3.0 mm OD), and we have studied nitrendipine's effect on contractile responses in isolated feline cardiac muscle and canine coronary arteries. [3H]nitrendipine binding is rapid, saturable, and reversible in all four species and in all of these tissues. Feline myocardium has a single binding site with a dissociation constant (KD) of 1.94 nM. Canine myocardium may have two classes of binding sites, with the high-affinity site having a KD of 0.17 nM. Nitrendipine depresses contractility in isolated feline cardiac muscle and canine coronary arteries in a dose-dependent manner [half-maximal dose (ED50) 0.20 microM in isolated feline cardiac muscle and 1.6-6.3 nM for potential dependent contractile responses in isolated canine coronary arteries] and severely blunts the contractile response to increases in extracellular calcium concentration in isolated feline papillary muscles. In contrast to verapamil and D 600, nitrendipine does not prevent the treppe phenomenon. In isolated feline cardiac muscle and large canine coronary arteries, the minimal nitrendipine concentration required for specific binding and for depression of contractile responses is similar. However, only in large canine coronary arteries is the ED50 for nifedipine's depression of contractility similar to the KD for [3H]nitrendipine binding in the respective tissue.