Abstract

The muscarinic receptor-binding properties of a series of muscarinic drugs were compared with their effects on adenylate cyclase in membranes of the rabbit myocardium. When measured by competitive inhibition of [3H]-N-methylscopolamine binding, the competition curves of the various agonists were adequately described by the ternary complex model. This model assumes that the receptor can bind reversibly with a guanine nucleotide binding protein in the membrane and that the affinity of the agonist for the receptor-guanine nucleotide-binding protein complex is higher than that for the free receptor. A satisfactory fit of the ternary complex model to the data could only be achieved assuming that very little receptor is precoupled with the guanine nucleotide-binding protein in the absence of agonist. There was good agreement between the efficacy of each agonist as measured by inhibition of adenylate cyclase and the estimate of the positive cooperativity between the binding of the agonist receptor complex and the guanine nucleotide-binding protein. Guanosine 5'-triphosphate (0.1 mM) had no significant effect on the binding of [3H]N-methylscopolamine but caused an increase in the concentration of the various agonists required for half-maximal receptor occupancy. There was good correlation between efficacy as measured by inhibition of adenylate cyclase and the influence of guanosine 5'-triphosphate on binding properties.