Organ culture of rat heart: maintained high sensitivity of fetal atria before innervation to norepinephrine

Changes in sensitivity to norepinephrine (NE) of fetal and neonatal rat right atria placed in organ culture were examined. The high sensitivity to NE of the 17-day fetal atria was maintained during organ culture for 5 days. The pD2 value for NE at the 17th day of gestation was 8.66 +/- 0.09, and that after organ culture for 5 days was 8.62 +/- 0.09. The sensitivity of 1-day-old neonatal artia was significantly lower than that of fetal atria; but when they were cultured for 24 h, there was a 10-fold increase in sensitivity. The pD2 value before culture was 7.59 +/- 0.05, and that after culture was 8.54 +/- 0.04. NE added to the culture medium prevented this increase in sensitivity. Similar changes were observed in the sensitivity to isoproterenol, but not in the sensitivity to forskolin, indicating that these sensitivity changes were of a postjunctional nature and most likely due to some changes in the beta-receptor and (or) its coupling to adenylate cyclase. Therefore, the decrease in myocardial sensitivity to NE observed during the late fetal period is most likely to be caused by factor(s) related to sympathetic innervation.