Constitutive activity of the human β1-adrenergic receptor in β1-receptor transgenic mice

We tested the hypothesis that the human beta (1)-adrenergic receptor displays constitutive activity and that beta -adrenergic antagonists differ in their ability to modulate this constitutive activity. Transfection of the cDNAs of the human beta (1)- and beta (2)-adrenergic receptors into COS-7 cells caused increases in basal cAMP that were proportional to the receptor levels, thus demonstrating constitutive activity for both subtypes. At comparable receptor levels, the increase in basal cAMP was about 5-fold higher for the beta (2)- than for the beta (1)-subtype. As a model for enhanced beta -adrenergic signaling at the whole-organ level, we used transgenic mice with heart-specific overexpression of the human beta (1)-adrenergic receptor. In this model, the beta (1)-adrenergic receptor displayed constitutive activity as evidenced by a higher spontaneous beating rate of isolated right atria from beta (1)-transgenic versus wild-type mice. This difference was abolished by the addition of CGP20712A, demonstrating inverse agonist properties of this compound. We then tested whether various beta -adrenergic antagonists currently in clinical use for the treatment of heart failure differ in their ability to modulate constitutive activity of the cardiac beta (1)-adrenergic receptor. The beta (1)-selective antagonists metoprolol and bisoprolol showed significant inverse agonist activity at the beta (1)-adrenergic receptor. Carvedilol behaved as a neutral antagonist and xamoterol displayed marked partial agonist activity. We conclude that the human beta (1)-adrenergic receptor displays constitutive activity that is considerably lower than that of the beta (2)-subtype. beta -Adrenergic antagonists currently in clinical use differ in their ability to exert inverse agonist activity at the human beta (1)-adrenergic receptor, which may contribute to their therapeutic effects.