Human plasma inhibitors of platelet serotonin uptake and imipramine receptor binding: Extraction and heterogeneity

Human plasma contains a considerable concentration of low molecular weight substances that inhibit, in a dose-dependent manner, both high-affinity imipramine receptor binding and serotonin uptake in platelets. Incubation of plasma with alumina was used to extract and to partly characterize these imipramine-like inhibitors. The human plasma extract inhibited imipramine binding and serotonin uptake with median inhibitory concentration (IC 50) of 0.18 ± 0.1 and 0.36 ± 0.15 mg/ml, respectively. Imipramine-like activity of the extract was markedly degraded by carboxypeptidase B and leucine aminopeptidase, but was resistant to neurominidase and phospholipases A 2, C, and D. The elution profile of the extract after gel chromatography on Bio-Gel P-2 showed two major peaks of serotonin uptake and imipramine binding inhibition and three additional peaks of serotonin uptake inhibitory activity that did not have a significant effect on imipramine binding. The possible mechanism of pharmacological action of the imipramine-like inhibitors and their relation to development of affective illnesses remain to be clarified.