BACKGROUND Mepivacaine induces contraction or decreased blood flow both in vivo and in vitro. Vasoconstriction is associated with an increase in the intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca(2+)]i). However, the mechanism responsible for the mepivacaine-evoked [Ca(2+)]i increase remains to be determined. Therefore, the objective of this in vitro study was to examine the mechanism responsible for...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Shenfu injection (SFI), derived from the ancient traditional Chinese medicine (Red Radix Ginseng and Radix Aconitum Carmichaeli), has been widely used in the clinical for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases for more than 20 years. The present study aims to investigate the effects of SFI and its main components on the contraction of isolated rat thoracic aorta rings a...

Myosin heavy chains (MHCs) from rat aorta smooth muscle cells were analyzed prior to and after these cells were placed into cell culture using sodium dodecyl sulfate-5% polyacrylamide gels, immunoblots, and two-dimensional peptide maps of tryptic digests. Rat aorta smooth muscle cells prior to culture were found to contain two MHCs (mass = 204 and 200 kDa) which cross-reacted with antibodies ra...

Aminoamide local anesthetics induce vasoconstriction in vivo and in vitro. The goals of this in vitro study were to investigate the potency of local anesthetic-induced vasoconstriction and to identify the physicochemical property (octanol/buffer partition coefficient, pKa, molecular weight, or potency) of local anesthetics that determines their potency in inducing isolated rat aortic ring contr...

Artemisia herba-alba Asso (Compositae) is used in oriental Morocco to treat diabetes and arterial hypertension. The present work evaluated the vasorelaxant effect of Artemisia herba-alba aqueous extract (AHAE) in isolated rat aorta and the mechanism underlying this effect. In endothelium-containing aorta preparations, AHAE (10(-3), 10(-2), 10(-1), 1 and 2 mg/mL) relaxed the contraction elicited...

introduction: in the current study, protective effect of natural honey applied during ischemia/reperfusion (i/r) was studied on infarct size in ischemic heartheart. methods: ischemic hearthearts (n=8 per group) were mounted on a langendorff apparatus at constant pressure then subjected to 30 min regional ischemia followed by 120 min reperfusion. in control group, the hearts were perfused by a m...

introduction: in the present study, potential differences between the effects of l-carnitine (lc) and acetyl-lcarnitine (alc) on ischemia/reperfusion (i/r)-induced myocardial infarction size were investigated. methods: male wistar rats were randomly divided into five groups and then anesthetized by sodium pentobarbital. hearts of the animals were removed and quickly mounted on a langendorff app...

imatinib is an orally administered tyrosine kinase inhibitor which inhibits the bcr-abl protein-tyrosine kinase with high selectivity. imatinib is rapidly absorbed from the gut, after oral intake and has an almost absolute bioavailability of 98%. the metabolism of imatinib is mediated by the cytochrome p450 (cyp) isoenzymes in the liver and gut wall. cgp74588 is a major active metabolite of ima...

Objective(s) Four novel losartan analogues 5a-d were synthesized by connecting a dihydropyridine nucleus to imidazole ring. The effects of 5a and 5b on angiotensin receptors (AT') and L-type calcium channels were investigated on isolated rat aorta. Materials and Methods Aortic rings were pre-contracted with 1 pM Angiotensin II or 80 mM KCl and relaxant effects of losartan, nifedipine, 5a and...