The effect of denervation of the cyclic nucleotides levels of the vas deferens.

We measured the cyclic nucleotides in levels of the rat vas deferens surgically denervated in order to investigate the relationship between denervation supersensitivity and cyclic nucleotides. Two days after denervation, cyclic AMP slightly decreased to 90.4% of control and cyclic GMP also decreased but not significantly. So it is assumed that almost all of the cyclic nucleotides are not neurogenic but myogenic. When the rat vas deferens was incubated with l-norepinephrine 10(-4) for 3 min, the cyclic GMP level in the vas deferens denervated for seven d was significantly higher than that in the intact specimen, and the cyclic AMP level in the intact one was almost the same as in the denervated preparation. Denervation produced leftward shift of the dose response curve in cyclic GMP level to l-norepinephrine. After incubation with acetylcholine (10(-4)M), however, cyclic GMP and cyclic AMP levels in the denervated vas deferens were almost the same as in the intact one. Therefore, it is suggested that cyclic nucleotides don't relate to the induction of nonspecific supersensitivity by denervation in the rat vas deferens.