The prevailing view of the behavior of the smooth muscle wall of large arteries is described by the Windkessel hypothesis, in which the wall does not actively contract in synchrony with the cardiac cycle. This hypothesis has predominated for well over a century. By contrast, several lines of evidence show that the smooth muscle wall of the aorta and other large arteries is capable of undergoing...

Medial degeneration associated with thoracic aortic aneurysm and acute aortic dissection was originally described by Erdheim as a noninflammatory lesion related to the loss of smooth muscle cells and elastic fibre fragmentation in the media. Recent evidences propose the strong role of a chronic immune/inflammatory process in aneurysm evocation and progression. The coexistence of inflammatory ce...

1. We have investigated the ability of bovine brain S.100, and of three related proteins from sheep aorta smooth muscle, to confer Ca(2+)-sensitivity on thin filaments reconstituted from smooth-muscle actin, tropomyosin and caldesmon. 2. At 37 degrees C in pH 7.0 buffer containing 120 mM-KCl, approximately stoichiometric amounts of S.100 reversed caldesmon's inhibition of the activation of myos...

We investigated the eff ects of urantide, a receptor antagonist of urotensin II (U-II), on the expression of U-II and its receptor GPR in rat vascular smooth muscle cells. Vascular smooth muscle cells from rat thoracic aorta were cultured by explant method. Subjects in this experiment were divided into eight groups: normal control group (group C), U-II group (group M), positive control group ...

The aim of this study was to clarify the differences between the angiotensin II type 1 (AT1) receptor antagonist and the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor on smooth muscle and nonmuscle myosin heavy chain isoforms in aortic smooth muscle cells of Wistar-Kyoto rats and spontaneously hypertensive rats. All 4 myosin heavy chain isoforms are heterogeneously expressed in the smooth muscl...

Abdominal aortic aneurysm is a smoking-related disorder. Cadmium, inhaled from cigarettes, may accumulate in the aorta and facilitate weakening of the aorta through adverse effects on smooth muscle cell metabolism. Cadmium was measured by atomic absorption spectrometry in infrarenal aortas from 13 patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm and from 17 age- and sex-matched patients with normal-diam...

bunium persicum (boiss.) is an economically important medicinal plant growing wild in arid regions in iran. the essential oil of b. persicum (eobp) was extracted using hydrodistillation. a total of eighteen compounds, representing 96.14 % of the oil was identified by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (gc/ms).the main compounds were cuminaldehyde (23.04 %), gamma-terpinene (14.48 %), trans-3-...

background and objectives: uterine smooth muscle tumors are the most common human neoplasm .they are divided clinically as benign and malignant but there is  another group of  lesions which is difficult to place in these two categories ,so-called smooth  muscle tumors of uncertain malignant potential (stump) and differentiation  of these tumors on the basis of h&e staining is impossible . t...

osteonectin is a bone- associated protein involved in vascular calcification. adiponectin may protect against cardiovascular disease but possible effects on vascular calcification have been poorly studied. the aim of this study was to investigate the modulatory effect of adiponectin on oxidized low density lipoprotein (oxldl)- induced expression of osteonectin in human aorta vascular smooth mus...