REGIONAL VARIATION IN THE RESPONSE OF THE RAT VAS DEFERENS TO FIELD STIMULATION, TO NORADRENALINE AND TO TYRAMINE

SUMMARY 1. Experiments were performed with preparations obtained by medial transection of the rat vas deferens providing urethral and testicular segments, to determine whether the smooth muscle of this organ responds uniformly along its length to field excitation of sympathetic nerve terminals and to sympathomimetic amines. 2. Both preparations responded to pulses applied at 0.1 Hz with twitches which were blocked by guanethidine (1–10 μM) indicating that sympathetic nerve terminals were being stimulated. Xylazine (0.01–1 μM) also blocked the twitches. 3. In response to stimulation at 0.1 Hz the twitches of the urethral segment were larger but briefer than those of the testicular segment. However, the increase in tension with increase in stimulation frequency over the range 0.01–10 Hz was greater in the testicular than in the urethral segment. After a train of pulses at 1 Hz or above, the first few twitches of the testicular segment evoked by pulses applied at 0.1 Hz were facilitated, whereas twitches of the urethral segment were inhibited. 4. Noradrenaline (1–100 μM) and tyramine (1–100 μM) regularly enhanced twitches in response to stimulation at 0.1 Hz in the testicular segment but often reduced those in the urethral segment. Contractions in response to these amines occurred more regularly and were stronger in the testicular than in the urethral segment. The α-adrenoreceptor antagonists phenoxybenzamine (0.01 μM), phentolamine (10 μM) and thymoxamine (10 μM) blocked contractions and blocked or reversed the twitch enhancement produced by noradrenaline and tyramine. These observations indicate that the density of excitatory α-adrenoreceptors is greater at the testicular end of the tissue. 6. Twitch inhibition evoked by noradrenaline or by tyramine in urethral segments was resistant to blockade by phenoxybenzamine (0.01 μM), phentolamine 10 μM), thymoxamine (10μM) and propranolol (10 μM). 7. A histological comparison of the two ends of the vas deferens indicated that at the urethral end there was more circularly arranged muscle and that this interrupted bundles of longitudinally arranged muscle. The testicular end was thinner but had the higher proportion of longitudinally arranged fibres. 8. The differences between the two ends of the vas deferens in the arrangement of muscle layers and in the response to sympathetic nerve stimulation and to drugs may be of physiological significance in relation to the transport of sperm from the epididymis to the urethra.