Static muscle contraction increases ATP release into the muscle interstitial space. Elevated ATP in muscle stimulates thin fiber muscle afferents and increases blood pressure via engagement of purinergic P2X receptors. In addition, ATP activates P2X receptors and enhances cardiovascular responses induced by stimulation of muscle mechanoreceptors. In this study, we examined whether elevated musc...

Voltage-gated calcium channels are important mediators of several physiological processes, including neuronal excitability and muscle contraction. At the molecular level, the channels are composed of four subunits--the pore forming alpha(1) subunit and the auxiliary alpha(2)delta, beta and gamma subunits. The auxiliary subunits modulate the trafficking and the biophysical properties of the alph...

Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) are a common complaint among aging men and are often caused by benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). A number of medical treatments for LUTS/BPH exist, such as alpha-blockers, 5alpha-reductase inhibitors, anticholinergics, phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors, and combination therapies. Agonist binding of the alpha(1A)-adrenergic receptor (AR), causing pr...

Abstract In this paper, we study a functional equation for generating functions of the form $$f(z) = g(z) \sum _{i=1}^M p_i f(\alpha _i(z)) + K(z)$$ f ( z ) = g ∑ i <...

The effects of diadenosine polyphosphates (APnA; n = 3-6) and adenine nucleotides on contractile reactivity of isolated rat mesenteric resistance arteries (MrA) and superior epigastric arteries (SEA), which display a dense and sparse autonomic innervation, respectively, were evaluated. All agonists examined, except adenosine and AMP, induced contractions. The rank order of potency was similar i...

We examined the longitudinal propagation of contraction in isolated human and pig coronary arteries. Epicardial coronary arteries of about 2 cm were cut open longitudinally, and the tension development of circular muscles was measured simultaneously at three sites (both cut ends and the midportion of the segment). Cyclic tension changes arising at one site of human coronary artery propagated sm...

The Na(+)-K(+)-ATPase (NKA) can affect intracellular Ca(2+) concentration regulation via coupling to the Na(+)-Ca(2+) exchanger and may be important in myogenic tone. We previously reported that in mice carrying a transgene for the NKA alpha(2)-isoform in smooth muscle (alpha(2sm+)), the alpha(2)-isoform protein as well as the alpha(1)-isoform (not contained in the transgene) increased to simil...

We investigated whether M(2) muscarinic receptor activation opposes isoproterenol-induced relaxation in mouse urinary bladder and whether endogenous acetylcholine acts through a similar M(2) mechanism. When measured in urinary bladder from M(3) receptor knockout mice, the muscarinic agonist oxotremorine-M elicited only very weak contractions. In the presence of alpha,beta-methylene ATP (30 micr...