The diverse biological actions of endothelins (ET) appear to be mediated by specific cell-surface receptors. Autoradiography and membrane binding studies have shown abundant ET binding sites in the kidney. However, their expression in specific types of renal cells is unclear. We studied the binding of 125I-labelled endothelin-1 in freshly isolated cell suspensions from canine inner medullary collecting duct. Competition binding experiments revealed the presence of specific high-affinity binding sites: unlabelled ET-1 and ET-2 compared with the radioligand with an IC50 of 135 and 83 pM, respectively, while the IC50 of ET-3 and big ET-1 were 2 and 4 orders of magnitude higher, indicating the presence of ETA-type receptor. Angiotensin II, vasopressin, and atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) did not compete for ET binding even at a concentration of 10(-6) M. Saturation binding experiments showed a single class of binding sites of high density (Bmax = 56.7 +/- 10.3 fmol/10(6) cells) and high affinity (Kd = 69.8 +/- 10 pM). In contrast, ANP receptors in the same cell preparations appeared as two classes of binding sites with widely different affinity and density. The high-affinity ANP site (Kd = 311 +/- 48 pM) was compatible with ANP-B (guanylate cyclase-coupled) receptor. ET-1 did not compete for this receptor. ET-1 (10(-7) M) did not alter ANP-induced cGMP generation in these cells (3.8-fold increase at 10(-7) M ANP), nor basal levels of cGMP.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)