Synergism between cellular messengers and agonist combinations in pepsinogen secretion

The esophagus of Rana catesbeiana yielded 20-40 X 10(6) peptic cells that were greater than 80% pure by immunostaining, greater than 90% viable, and had low basal pepsinogen and lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) release. Cellular responses to agents that bypass receptors and act directly on cell messenger systems have been compared with receptor-mediated activation. Pepsinogen secretion was stimulated dose dependently by A23187, the phorbol ester 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA), and forskolin. The combination of any two or all three agents at optimum effective concentrations stimulated secretion to more than double the output of the sum of the individual responses. Incubation in Ca2+-free media reduced responses to A23187 and TPA but not forskolin. Ca2+ deprivation eliminated the synergism of messenger combinations. Secretory responses to combinations of the agonists bethanechol or bombesin with either A23187 or TPA were additive and were synergistic with forskolin. Isoproterenol plus bethanechol or bombesin produced synergistic responses that were significantly smaller than combinations of their putative messengers. The synergistic response to isoproterenol and bethanechol was dependent on extracellular Ca2+. These data suggest that although Ca2+ may function in peptic cells to stimulate secretion directly, it may also act as a gain control for synergistic interaction between other messenger pathways (protein kinase a and c).