INTRODUCTION This article reviews the mechanisms affecting contraction and relaxation of the urethra in order to establish a basis for current and future treatments for urinary incontinence in women. MATERIAL AND METHODS A review of the English literature using MEDLINE was performed between 1970 and 2008 on female urethra pharmacology, urinary incontinence, and mechanisms involved in contract...

HYPOTHESIS Fibroblasts, not myofibroblasts, are responsible for wound contraction. Only myofibroblasts express a smooth muscle actin for which vanadate blocks its expression. Wound contraction in vanadate-treated rats will proceed normally in the absence of myofibroblasts. DESIGN Laboratory study using rats. METHODS Wound healing in rats receiving vanadate parenterally, an inhibitor of tyro...

The myofibroblast is responsible for the generation of contractile force associated with wound contraction and pathological contractures and is characterized by the presence of alpha-smooth muscle (alpha-sm) actin-containing stress fibers, vinculin-containing fibronexus adhesion complexes, and fibronectin fibrils containing the ED-A splice variant. Transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) c...

we investigated contraction to noradrenaline (na) and kc1 and sensitivity of na at the level of larger vessels (thoracic aorta and vena cava; left renal artery and left renal vein; lateral saphenous artery and lateral saphenous vein and finally central ear artery and marginal ear vein) in a model devised to mimic heart failure. the model presented here is the rabbit coronary ligation model in w...

Caveolae are omega-shaped membrane invaginations that are abundant in smooth muscle cells. Since many receptors and signaling proteins co-localize with caveolae, these have been proposed to integrate important signaling pathways. The aim of this study was to test whether RhoA/Rho-kinase and protein kinase C (PKC)-mediated Ca(2+) sensitization depends on caveolae using caveolin (Cav)-1-deficient...

Oxytocin-induced Ca(2+) transients play an important role in myometrial contractions. Here, using a knockout model, we found that the enzyme CD38, responsible for the synthesis of the second messenger cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR), plays an important role in the oxytocin-induced Ca(2+) transients and contraction. We also observed that CD38 is necessary for TNF-alpha-increased agonist-stimulated Ca(...

The pharmacological profile of a new alpha-1 adrenoceptor antagonist, alpha-ethyl-3,4,5-trimethoxy-alpha-(3-((2-(2-methoxyphenoxy)ethyl)amino) propyl) benzene-acetonitrile fumarate (HV-723), was studied in vitro. In dog mesenteric arteries, HV-723, prazosin and yohimbine competitively inhibited noradrenaline-induced contraction: the pA2 value of HV-723 (9.37) was apparently larger than that of ...

PURPOSE To determine whether the ability of transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) to influence the contractile activity of corneal fibroblasts depends on their differentiation into myofibroblasts. METHODS Bovine corneal fibroblasts were cultured on collagen gel in MED 5 medium (F-12 nutrient mixture supplemented with 5% fetal bovine serum) with or without TGF-beta 1 (0.01-10 ng/ml). To e...

Abstract The aim of this article is to introduce α \alpha - ψ \psi -proximal contraction in the setting ℱ -metric space and prove existence best proximity points for these contractions. As applications our main results, we obtain coupled on equipped with an arbitrary binary relation.

Crk-associated substrate (CAS), a 130-kDa adaptor protein, was discovered as a tyrosine kinase substrate of Src that was important to cellular motility and actin filament formation. As the tyrosine kinase Src is utilized by the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)(2A) receptor in arterial contraction, we tested the hypothesis that CAS was integral to 5-HT(2A) receptor-mediated vasoconstriction. Rat thora...