Regulation of Vascular Tone During Pregnancy

Regulation of vascular tone during pregnancy: a novel role for the pregnane X receptor.

During pregnancy, maternal vascular function is altered through mechanisms that remain unclear. Progesterone synthesis and metabolism are also increased. Progesterone metabolites are potent endogenous ligands for the pregnane X receptor (PXR), a nuclear receptor that induces the expression of hepatic cytochrome P450 enzymes. Cytochrome P450 enzymes located in the vasculature can metabolize arac...

Endothelial regulation of vascular tone.

Astrocyte regulation of cerebral vascular tone.

Cerebral blood flow is controlled by two crucial processes, cerebral autoregulation (CA) and neurovascular coupling (NVC) or functional hyperemia. Whereas CA ensures constant blood flow over a wide range of systemic pressures, NVC ensures rapid spatial and temporal increases in cerebral blood flow in response to neuronal activation. The focus of this review is to discuss the cellular mechanisms...

Regulation of vascular tone, molecular mechanisms.

V ASCULAR tone, a state of maintained contraction of the smooth muscle in the vessel wall, is the process by which the blood vessel carries out its physiologic functions, its pharmacologic responses, and its pathologic changes. Current research directed at an understanding of the molecular mechanisms that regulate vascular tone is progressing at a rapid rate. The state of this art was surveyed ...

Purinergic regulation of vascular tone and remodelling.

1 Purinergic signalling is involved both in short-term control of vascular tone and in longer-term control of cell proliferation, migration and death involved in vascular remodelling. 2 There is dual control of vascular tone by adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) released from perivascular nerves and by ATP released from endothelial cells in response to changes in blood flow (shear stress) and hypo...