Existing in vitro models of human skeletal muscle cannot recapitulate the organization and function of native muscle, limiting their use in physiological and pharmacological studies. Here, we demonstrate engineering of electrically and chemically responsive, contractile human muscle tissues ('myobundles') using primary myogenic cells. These biomimetic constructs exhibit aligned architecture, mu...

1 Histamine produced dose-dependent contractile responses on both isolated perfused ear arteries and aortic strips of the rabbit. These responses were blocked by mepyramine and potentiated by both metiamide and dithiothreitol. 2 In the presence of maximum potentiation by metiamide, dithiothreitol still potentiated the contractile response to histamine of both preparations. 3 In the presence of ...

The possible role of endothelium in the vascular responses to vasodilator drugs was studied in relation to experimental hypertension. Short ring segments of the thoracic aorta and femoral artery were removed from spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and normotensive WistarKyoto (WKY) rats. They were rubbed on the intimal surface to destruct endothelial cells or unrubbed, and bathed in Krebs-bi...

The contractile activation of airway smooth muscle tissues stimulates actin polymerization, and the inhibition of actin polymerization inhibits tension development. Actin-depolymerizing factor (ADF) and cofilin are members of a family of actin-binding proteins that mediate the severing of F-actin when activated by dephosphorylation at serine 3. The role of ADF/cofilin activation in the regulati...

To examine the effect of platelets and 5-hydroxytryptamine on pulmonary arterial smooth muscle, rings of canine pulmonary arteries, with and without endothelium, were studied under isometric conditions in physiological salt solution. 5-Hydroxytryptamine, but not the thromboxane-like endoperoxide analogue U-46619, produced concentration-dependent contractions of the rings with a maximum averagin...

Our goal was to define the role of phosphorylated cardiac troponin-I in the adult myocyte contractile performance response to activated protein kinase C. In agreement with earlier work, endothelin enhanced both adult rat myocyte contractile performance and cardiac troponin-I phosphorylation. Protein kinase C participated in both responses. The role of cardiac troponin-I phosphorylation in the c...

The first goal of this study was to examine the effect of secondhand smoking on neurogenic, endothelium- and cGMP-dependent relaxant responses of rabbit corpus cavernosum smooth muscle. Our second goal was to determine whether such an effect can be prevented by oral administration of L-arginine. Male New Zealand rabbits were divided into control, chronic passive cigarette smoking and L-arginine...

The ability of forskolin and isoproterenol to inhibit the contractile action of the muscarinic agonist, oxotremorine-M, was investigated in smooth muscle from wild-type and M(2) muscarinic receptor knockout mice. Forskolin (5.0 micro M) caused a significant reduction in the contractile activity of oxotremorine-M in ileum, trachea, and urinary bladder from both wild-type and M(2) muscarinic rece...

We have investigated the effects of L-arginine, D-arginine and L-lysine on airway smooth muscle responsiveness to spasmogens in vitro. Both L-arginine and D-arginine (100 mM) significantly reduced the contractile potency and maximal contractile response to histamine but not to methacholine or potassium chloride in guinea-pig epithelium-denuded isolated trachea. Similarly, the contractile respon...

This study was designed to answer two questions. First, does the left ventricular contractile dysfunction resulting from mitral regurgitation (MR) reflect a primary defect in the cardiac muscle cell? Second, what is the basis for any change in cellular contractile function that might be observed? Left ventricular volume overload was produced in 10 dogs by catheter transection of mitral chordae ...