Relationship Between Actions of Adrenocortical Steroids and Adrenomedullary Hormones in the Production of Eosinopenia

Abstract

It was shown that epinephrine is eosinopenic in the adrenalectomized dog in the presence of cortisone, and that epinephrine can cause significant eosinopenia in the bilaterally adrenalectomized human subject or in the Addisonian patient maintained on cortisone. In small doses epinephrine alone produces eosinophilia in the adrenalectomized dog; in large and probably unphysiologic doses, it produces eosinopenia in the adrenalectomized dog. These data suggest that the C-ll oxysteroids cooperate with epinephrine in a permissive fashion to produce eosinopenia. Under certain circumstances (e.g., the adrenalectomized cortisone-maintained animal) this cooperative action is the sole basis for epinephrine-induced eosinopenia, but in the normal animal with intact hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenals, epinephrine-induced release of ACTH may reinforce this action by making more C-ll oxysteroids available. A cooperative action of epinephrine and C-ll oxysteroids is probably a widespread phenomenon in many biologic reactions.