Chronic haloperidol treatment increases the level of in vitro translatable messenger ribonucleic acid coding for the beta-endorphin/adrenocorticotropin precursor proopiomelanocortin in the pars intermedia of the rat pituitary.

Chronic treatment of rats with haloperidol (1.5 mg/kg, once daily) over a period of 7--21 days resulted in a 80--100% increase in the tissue levels of immunoreactive beta-endorphin and in the in vitro release of immunoreactive beta-endorphin from the neurointermediate pituitary. Incorporation of [3H]phenylalanine into isolated neurointermediate pituitaries of haloperidol-treated rats revealed an increase in the amount of label incorporated into the beta-endorphin/ACTH precursor proopiomelanocortin (POMC) to a similar extent (about 80%) but had essentially no effect on the conversion of the precursor into beta-lipotropin and beta-endorphin. Extraction of messenger (m) RNA from neurointermediate pituitaries followed by cell-free translation in a reticulocyte system showed an increase in the total level of translatable mRNA (about 25%). The content of translatable mRNA coding for POMC, however, was increased by 100-150%. Time-course studies revealed a parallelism between the effect of haloperidol on the level of in vitro translatable mRNA coding for POMC and the ability of the drug to increase the concentrations of beta-endorphin in the neurointermediate pituitary. A complete reversal of the effects of haloperidol was seen 2 weeks after discontinuation of the drug. These findings suggest that the chronic blockade of dopaminergic receptors by haloperidol causes a reversible increase in the beta-endorphin biosynthesis in the rat intermediate pituitary at the pretranslational level by markedly increasing the level of translatable mRNA coding for POMC.