A comparison of histamine effects on the sympathetic neurotransmission of testicular capsule and rat vas deferens

Histamine is an important modulatory agent of the sympathetic neurotransmission, but its exact action on the testicular capsule or rat vas deferens is not fully understood. The present study sought to further investigate the functional effects of histamine on the neuronal and exogenous noradrenaline-induced contraction of the testicular capsule and rat vas deferens as well as to evaluate the contractile properties of this drug. The testicular capsule or vas deferens from Wistar rats, 3–4 months old, weighing 300–400 g, was isolated and mounted in organ baths for functional experiments. The results indicated that the neuronally evoked contraction of the testicular capsule was affected by histamine (10 −10 to 10 −8 M) with participation of inhibitory (H 3 receptors) and excitatory (H 1 receptors) receptors. Histamine (10 −7 to 10 −4 M) modulated the field-stimulated vas deferens by excitatory (H 2 receptors) and inhibitory (H 1 receptors) receptors. Histamine was able to decrease the tonic response for noradrenaline-induced contractions with participation of H 1 receptors (testicular capsule) and H 3 receptors (vas deferens) followed by nitric oxide generation. At high concentration, histamine exerts contractile effects in both tissues. In the testicular capsule, the histamine-induced contractions were related to H 1 receptor activation followed by release of prostaglandins. In contrast, the contractile effects of histamine in the vas deferens were related to H 2 receptor activation followed by release of catecholamines from sympathetic nerve endings. Therefore, our results indicate that histamine induced several effects on the sympathetic neurotransmission of rat testicular capsule and vas deferens. These effects are dependent on the concentration used and with participation of multiple histamine receptors.