Rabbit alveolar beta-adrenergic receptors increase with gestational age

Pulmonary beta-adrenergic receptors, which mediate the actions of endogenous catecholamines, increase before birth, an important step in pulmonary maturation. This increase, which occurs primarily in the alveoli, may be hastened by corticosteroids. However, because the lung is composed of more than 40 cell types, we asked whether the normal distribution of beta-adrenergic receptors changes with gestational age in a way that seems physiologically relevant. We compared lungs from fetal rabbits at 26 and 31 days' gestation with lungs from adult rabbits by autoradiography with 125iodocyanopindolol, a beta-adrenergic antagonist. While the total silver grain concentration increased during gestation, the greatest proportional increase occurred in the alveoli. We conclude that pulmonary beta-adrenergic receptor concentration increases during gestation and that this increase is most dramatic for alveoli. This pattern is consistent with that previously observed after treatment of fetal rabbits in utero with corticosteroids.