Antagonism of aminoglutethimide and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) studied on slices of adrenal glands of the guinea-pig

: Aminoglutethimide at concentrations from 0.1 to 5 nM is able to inhibit the cortisol release elicited by adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) (from 2.5 to 50 ng/ml) in guinea-pig adrenal cortex slices. The antagonism is a non-competitive one (in a Lineweaver-Burk plot), whereas other drugs (morphine, endorphin, indomethacin, etc.) inhibit ACTH competitively. This is in agreement with the known mechanism of action of aminoglutethimide, which inhibits the synthesis of cortisol by blocking reactions of enzymes such as aromatase and desmolase. From the data one can calculate the dissociation constant (Km) of ACTH with its receptor(s) to be 0.27 pg/ml and the inhibiting constant (Kl) of aminoglutethimide to be 49.78 x 10(-10) M. The maximal response of ACTH was 52.9 ng/ml.