Effects of vitamin D and parathyroid hormone on cyclic AMP production by bone cells isolated from rat calvariae

Summary Studies presented here were designed to investigate further the basis for an impaired cAMP response to parathyroid hormone (PTH) in osteoblastlike calvarial bone cells isolated from vitamin D-deficient rat pups. The goal was to perturb Ca, PTH, and vitamin Din vivo in order to see which factors might be responsible for the impairedin vitro bone cell cAMP response. Pups either were parathyroidectomized (PTX) 3–5 days, implanted with osmotic minipumps delivering high doses of PTH, given repeated, high doses of 1,25(OH)₂D₃, or were D-deficient (-D, i.e., born and suckled by D-deficient mothers). Osteoblastlike bone cells, isolated by sequential enzyme digestion and centrifugation, were exposed to PTH for 5 min in the presence of a phosphodiesterase inhibitor. In bone cells isolated from -D rat pups, both basal and PTH-induced cAMP accumulation were significantly lower than in +D bone cells. Earlier, we had shown that two daily injections of -D pups with 50 ng 1,25(OH)₂D₃ restores this reduced bone cAMP response of -D pups toward normal. In the present study, neither basal nor PTH-induced bone cell cAMP accumulation was affected by subjecting D-replete pups to PTX, PTH infusion, or repeated high doses of 1,25(OH)₂D₃ despite the fact that each treatment markedly changed serum Ca or serum immunoreactive PTH. The results indicate that the impaired bone cell cAMP response seen in -D pups is not a direct result of chronic hypocalcemia and that the “heterologous desensitization” seenin vitro with added 1,25(OH)₂D₃ could not be duplicated byin vivo treatment of +D pups with supraphysiologic doses of 1,25(OH)₂D₃. Finally the lack of alteration in the bone cell cAMP response to PTHin vitro after chronic PTH infusionin vivo fails to support the notion that the impaired response in -D bone cells can be explained entirely by “homologous desensitization” induced by high circulating levels of PTH in the hypocalcemic, -D rat pup.