prangos ferulacea is a plant found in the mediterranean and middle-east regions used as carminative, anti-flatulent, emollient and antibacterial herb. it is believed that the coumarins are responsible for some of known effects of  prangos . in this research the relaxant effects of p. ferulacea coumrin rich extract as well as osthole as its main prenylated coumarins were investigated on rat ileu...

Studying the functioning of various body systems in different vertebrates is one key tasks comparative physiology. Teleost fishes are a large group vertebrates; however, mechanisms their digestive tract poorly understood and known mainly for such model object as Danio rerio. The aim this work was to characterize participation subtypes M-cholinergic receptors Rho-kinase enzyme cholinergic contra...

To visualize ASM contraction in vitro, we measured changes in cross-sectional area and inner circumference of isolated porcine and human bronchi in response to acetylcholine or carbamylcholine chloride (Carbachol) using high-frequency ultrasound. A mechanical ultrasonic catheter (20 MHz; diameter, 1.7 mm; echo element, 1 mm2) demonstrated three histologic layers (mucosa, cartilage and adventiti...

Smooth muscle contraction regulated by myosin light chain phosphorylation is also regulated at the thin-filament level. Tropomyosin, a thin-filament regulatory protein, regulates contraction by modulating actin-myosin interactions. Present investigation shows that acetylcholine induces PKC-mediated and calcium-dependent phosphorylation of tropomyosin in colonic smooth muscle cells. Our data als...

Smooth muscle cells were isolated from the stomach of the guinea pig, and the kinetics, stoichiometry, and specificity of contraction in response to the C-terminal octapeptides of cholecystokinin (CCK-OP), gastrin-17, and acetylcholine were examined. All three agonists elicited dose-dependent peak contraction that did not depend on the presence of extra-cellular calcium. The potencies of CCK-OP...

We have compared the reactivity to spasmogens of longitudinal muscularis mucosae isolated from the human, guinea pig and rat colon in vitro. The muscularis mucosae isolated from the human distal colon responded with a sustained contractions to carbachol (10 nM-30 microM), in a concentration-dependent manner, and the maximum contraction was comparable to that with high potassium concentration (1...

Preliminary studies showed that dorsal artery contraction mediated by acetylcholine (ACh) is blocked with indomethacin in intertidal fish (G. laevifrons). Our objective was to characterize the cholinergic pathway in several artery vessels of the I. conceptionis. Afferent and efferent branchial, dorsal and mesenteric arteries were dissected of 6 juvenile specimens, isometric tension studies were...

This study was designed to determine whether the endothelium-derived relaxing factor induced by acetylcholine (1 microM) in rabbit thoracic aorta inhibits agonist-induced calcium mobilization, specifically calcium influx. Force generated in rings of rabbit thoracic aorta by norepinephrine (1 microM) was measured under isometric conditions. At the appropriate time during 1 microM acetylcholine-i...

Naik, Jay S., Zoran Valic, John B. Buckwalter, and Philip S. Clifford. Rapid vasodilation in response to a brief tetanic muscle contraction. J. Appl. Physiol. 87(5): 1741–1746, 1999.—To test the hypothesis that vasodilation occurs because of the release of a vasoactive substance after a brief muscle contraction and to determine whether acetylcholine spillover from the motor nerve is involved in...