Characterization of agonist-induced vasoconstriction in mouse pulmonary artery

Abstract

doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00968.2007.—In recent years, transgenic mouse models have been developed to examine the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms of lung disease and pulmonary vascular dis-ease, such as asthma, pulmonary thromboembolic disease, and pul-monary hypertension. However, there has not been systematic char-acterization of the basic physiological pulmonary vascular reactivity in normal and transgenic mice. This represents an intellectual “gap”, since it is important to characterize basic murine pulmonary vascular reactivity in response to various contractile and relaxant factors to which the pulmonary vasculature is exposed under physiological conditions. The present study evaluates excitation- and pharmacome-chanical-contraction coupling in pulmonary arteries (PA) isolated from wild-type BALB/c mice. We demonstrate that both pharmaco-and electromechanical coupling mechanisms exist in mice PA. These arteries are also reactive to stimulation by 1-adrenergic agonists