Pregnancy: Oxygen promotes contraction by endothelin-1 in human umbilical artery

Mechanism of endothelin-1-induced contraction in rabbit basilar artery.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is suggested to be a major cause of cerebral vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage. However, the mechanism of ET-1-induced contraction in cerebral arteries remains unclear. This study was undertaken to demonstrate the possible role of protein tyrosine kinase (PTK), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), and protein kinase C (PKC) in ET-1-induced co...

Influence of recombinant erythropoietin on the production of endothelin-1 from human umbilical artery.

Endothelin-1 stimulates human colonic myofibroblast contraction and migration.

BACKGROUND Although the contractile, migratory, and proliferative responses of subepithelial myofibroblasts to injury have been postulated to be important events in intestinal wound healing, contractile force generation and migration by these cells has not been investigated previously, and the signals that regulate proliferation by these cells are poorly understood. AIMS The primary aim of th...

Therapeutic angiogenesis promotes efficacy of human umbilical cord matrix stem cell transplantation in cardiac repair

Objective(s):Although previous studies have confirmed the beneficial effects of human umbilical cord matrix stem cell (hUCM) transplantation post myocardial infarction (MI), but this stem cell resource has no potential to induce angiogenesis. In order to achieve the process of angiogenesis and cardiomyocyte regeneration, two required factors for cardiac repair agents were examined namely; hUCM ...

Nitric oxide and endothelin in oxygen-dependent regulation of vascular tone of human umbilical vein.

We investigated the possible contribution of nitric oxide (NO) and endothelin (ET) to oxygen-dependent regulation of human umbilical vein vascular tone by simultaneous registration of intracellular membrane potential and isometric tension of vessel strips with and without NO synthase inhibition [10-4 M N omega-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME)], ETA receptor blockade (10(-5) M BQ-123), or ...