Myofibroblasts generate the contractile force responsible for wound healing and pathological tissue contracture. In this paper the stress-relaxed collagen lattice model was used to study lysophosphatidic acid (LPA)-promoted myofibroblast contraction and the role of the small GTPase Rho and its downstream targets Rho kinase and myosin light chain phosphatase (MLCPPase) in regulating myofibroblas...

Receptor-induced vascular smooth muscle cell contraction is mediated by dual regulation of myosin light chain (MLC(20)) phosphorylation through Ca(2+)-dependent stimulation of myosin light chain kinase and Rho/Rho-kinase-mediated inhibition of myosin phosphatase. Although myosin light chain kinase regulation is initiated by the coupling of receptors to G proteins of the G(q) family, G(q) and G(...

Hypertension is a major risk factor for many common chronic diseases, such as heart failure, myocardial infarction, stroke, vascular dementia, and chronic kidney disease. Pathophysiological mechanisms contributing to the development of hypertension include increased vascular resistance, determined in large part by reduced vascular diameter due to increased vascular contraction and arterial remo...

Biochemical properties of 3-substituted 1,4-benzodiazepine determined by the characteristics of their chemical structure. Influence of 3-substituted 1,4-benzodiazepin-2-ones on maximal normalized rate and amplitudes of isometric smooth muscle contraction in rats was investigated. Compounds MX-1775 and MX-1828 demonstrated the similar inhibition effect on bradykinin-induced contraction of smooth...

BACKGROUND Thromboxane A(2) (TxA(2))-induced smooth muscle contraction has been implicated in cardiovascular, renal and respiratory diseases. This contraction can be partly attributed to TxA(2)-induced Ca(2+) influx, which resulted in vascular contraction via Ca(2+)-calmodulin-MLCK pathway. This study aims to identify the channels that mediate TxA(2)-induced Ca(2+) influx in vascular smooth mus...

Ihara E, Moffat L, Ostrander J, Walsh MP, MacDonald JA. Characterization of protein kinase pathways responsible for Ca sensitization in rat ileal longitudinal smooth muscle. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 293: G699–G710, 2007. First published July 26, 2007; doi:10.1152/ajpgi.00214.2007.—We investigated the protein kinases responsible for myosin regulatory light chain (LC20) phosphoryla...

The degree of lumen narrowing in advanced lesions correlates poorly with the amount of intimal mass accumulated in the atherosclerotic plaque. As an alternate mechanism of stenosis, we propose that human smooth muscle cells bind to fibrin deposited in the matrix and exert contractile forces to cause a narrowing of the lumen. In the present study we demonstrated in vitro that human newborn aorti...

Functionally contracting smooth muscle is an essential part of the engineered intestine that has not been replicated in vitro. The purpose of this study is to produce contracting smooth muscle in culture by maintaining the native smooth muscle organization. We employed intact smooth muscle strips and compared them to dissociated smooth muscle cells in culture for 14 days. Cells isolated by enzy...

Depolarization of the sarcolemma of smooth muscle cells activates voltage-gated Ca2+ channels, influx of Ca2+ and activation of cross-bridge cycling by phosphorylation of myosin catalysed by Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent myosin light-chain kinase (MLCK). Agonist stimulation of smooth muscle contraction often involves other kinases in addition to MLCK. In the present study, we address the hypothesis...

immunofluorescence of bladder smooth muscles of OAB rats were shown. The positive staining of TRPC6 appeared at cell membrane of bladder smooth muscle. The western blot and RT-PCR results indicated that, the expression of TRPC6 protein and mRNA in OAB was significantly higher than the normal. After administration of FK506, the expression and mRNA of TRPC6 decreased obviously, and there were imp...