Abstract of the 68th Meeting (Spring Meeting) 6–9 March 1990, Heidelberg

The role of cytoplasmic (newly synthesized) dopamine for the spontaneous and electrically evoked release of dopamine and its metabolites from the isolated neurointermediate lobe of the rat pituitary gland in vitro.

Isolated rat NILs were incubated in Krebs-HEPES solution. The release of dopamine and its metabolites (DOPAC, HVA and MOPET) was determined by HPLC with electrochemical detection. The spontaneous release of the sum of metabolites was about 40 times that of dopamine. The spontaneous outflow of dopamine metabolites was unaffected after inhibition of dopamine uptake (by GBR 12921) or after pretreatment with reserpine (5 mg/kg, 12 h before the experiments), but it was reduced by 50% after preincubation with the irreversible DOPA decarboxylase inhibitor, (MFMD, 10 microM, for 10 min). The combination of pretreatment with reserpine and preincubation with MFMD resulted in an 80% inhibition of the …