A New Mechanism of Vasospasm?

Endothelin-1 is an endothelium-derived vasoconstrictor peptide. Its circulating levels are below those known to evoke direct vascular effects. To study whether low concentrations of endothelin-1 potentiate the effects of other vasoconstrictor hormones, we suspended isolated human internal mammary and left anterior descending coronary artery rings in organ chambers for isometric tension recording. In mammary artery rings, the contractions to norepinephrine (3 x 10-8 M) were potentiated by threshold (3 X 10-10 M) and low concentrations (10` M) of endothelin-1 (96±35% and 149±58% increase from control; p<0.01 and 0.001; n=6). The inhibitor of endothelial nitric oxide formation L-NG-monomethyl arginine did not affect the potentiating effects of the peptide. The calcium antagonist darodipine (10` M) prevented the potentiation of the response to norepinephrine evoked by endothelin-1. Similarly, contractions to serotonin (10` or 3 x 10-8 M) were amplified by endothelin-1 (3 x 10-10 M) in the