In addition to its contractile properties, airway smooth muscle may contribute to the pathogenesis of asthma by increased proliferation, and by the expression and secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and mediators. Studies of airway smooth muscle cells in culture have shown that many mitogenic mediators can induce proliferation, and that these may therefore, contribute to the increase in air...

The intermediate filament (IF) network is one of the three cytoskeletal systems in smooth muscle. The type III IF proteins vimentin and desmin are major constituents of the network in smooth muscle cells and tissues. Lack of vimentin or desmin impairs contractile ability of various smooth muscle preparations, implying their important role for smooth muscle force development. The IF framework ha...

BACKGROUND Chronic airway obstruction is characteristic of cystic fibrosis (CF) but there are few studies of airway smooth muscle remodelling in CF. METHODS Airway smooth muscle content and mean airway smooth muscle cell size were measured by applying design-based stereology to bronchoscopic biopsy specimens obtained from seven subjects with CF and 15 healthy controls. RESULTS The smooth mu...

α-smooth muscle actin, encoded by ACTA2 gene, is an isoform of the vascular smooth muscle actins, typically expressed in the vascular smooth muscle cells contributing to vascular motility and contraction. ACTA2 gene mutations cause a diversity of diffuse vasculopathies such as thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections as well as occlusive vascular diseases, including premature coronary artery d...

Smooth muscle cells are maintained in a differentiated state in the vessel wall, but can be modulated to a synthetic phenotype following injury. Smooth muscle phenotypic modulation is thought to play an important role in the pathology of vascular occlusive diseases. Phenotypically modulated smooth muscle cells exhibit increased proliferative and migratory properties that accompany the downregul...

It is well established that during in vivo development the neurons of the avian ciliary ganglion are dependent for their survival on structures in the eye. Separate neuron populations innervate intraocular smooth and striated muscle targets. All ciliary neurons survive when cocultured with striated muscle. We demonstrate that when ciliary ganglion neurons are plated on explants of the choroid c...

Vascular smooth muscle cells in atherosclerotic lesions are phenotypically different from those in the normal arterial wall, and no expression of macrophage colony stimulating factor (M-CSF) receptor encoded by the proto-oncogene c-fms has been demonstrated in normal smooth muscle cells. In the present study, we demonstrated expression of c-fms and high affinity binding of M-CSF in smooth muscl...

Expression of the alpha7 integrin is developmentally regulated and is thought to be tissue-specific for both skeletal and cardiac muscles. We now report that alpha7 is also strongly and ubiquitously expressed by various types of smooth muscle, including vascular, gastrointestinal and genitourinary smooth muscles. In addition, alpha7 was surface-expressed by a number of smooth muscle cell lines ...

although the etiology of varicose veins remains unknown, recent studies have focused on endothelial cell integrity and function because the endothelium regulates vessel tone and synthesizes many pro- and anti-inflammatory factors. the aim of this study was to investigate the evidence involving the endothelium in the development of varicose vein disease. in addition, tissue remodeling was invest...