Differences in affinity of cardiac beta-adrenergic receptors for [3H]dihydroalprenolol

We performed quantitative light microscopic autoradiography of [3H]dihydroalprenolol (DHA) binding to frozen sections of canine myocardium to test the hypothesis that there are differences in the density or affinity of beta-adrenergic receptors on various tissue compartments. In one study, with concentrations of [3H]DHA from 0.34 to 5.1 nM, specific binding to cardiac myocytes was saturable, whereas nonspecific binding was linear with ligand concentration. Arterioles had more specific grain counts than muscle cells (P less than 0.0001), and Scatchard analysis showed that the arterioles had a much higher affinity for [3H]DHA than myocytes. In a second study with lower concentrations of [3H]DHA (0.19-1.98 nM), binding to the arterioles saturated, whereas binding to the cardiac myocytes did not. Specific binding to arterioles was significantly higher (P less than 0.0001) than binding to myocytes at all concentrations of [3H]DHA. The dissociation constants for the subendocardial and subepicardial myocytes were 1.57 and 1.71 nM, respectively, while the dissociation constant for the arterioles was 0.26 nM. The maximum number of binding sites was 911 grains/0.9 X 10(-2) mm2 for subepicardial myocytes, 936 for subendocardial myocytes, and 986 for arterioles. The large nerves accompanying an epicardial artery also demonstrated specific [3H]DHA binding. Thus this study has demonstrated major differences in the distribution and affinity of beta-adrenergic receptors, which may help to explain various physiological responses to beta-adrenergic stimulation.