Effects of histidine on vasopressin action: role of decreased prostaglandin production.

Addition of histidine to the serosal bath of the toad bladder increases the hydrosmotic response of vasopressin in this tissue. Because this represents primarily the effect of the imidazole ring of histidine, which is a known inhibitor of the production of prostaglandins, we evaluated whether histidine increases the response to vasopressin through decreased prostaglandin production. Histidine increases the response to vasopressin much more than 10(-5) M naproxen, even though the latter was equipotent to histidine in reducing prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) production.