The use of the bovine retractor penis muscle for the assessment of ganglion-blocking activity of neuromuscular blocking and other drugs.

Inhibition of relaxation of strips of the bovine retractor penis muscle induced by a standard dose of nicotine (30 microM) was used for quantitative assessment of the ganglion-blocking activity of eight neuromuscular blocking agents that are in clinical use. The order of potency of the drugs studied was (+)-tubocurarine >> alcuronium > vecuronium > metocurine >> pancuronium > atracurium >>> suxamethonium > gallamine. The results have been compared to those obtained with other methods. On the basis of the present results, it is concluded that inhibition of the nicotine-induced relaxation of the bovine retractor penis muscle can be used as an alternative, sensitive in vitro method for the assessment of the ganglion-blocking activity of a neuromuscular blocking agent relative to that of, for example, (+)-tubocurarine. Earlier results have showed that this method is useful also for the assessment of the ganglion-blocking activity of other drugs, because it has yielded comparable and reproducible results at the quantitation of this property of actual ganglion-blocking and various antimuscarinic agents. In addition, this method may be useful for rapid screening of ganglion-blocking activity.