Current Vascular Pharmacology - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2004

Corticosteroid hormones play an important role in the control of vascular smooth muscle tone by their permissive effects in potentiating vasoactive responses to catecholamines through glucocorticoid receptors. Increased cortisol response has been associated with an increase in arterial contractile sensitivity to norepinephrine and vascular resistance. Glucocorticoids regulate vascular reactivity by acting on both endotheli Read More

Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH)-induced cerebral vasospasm causes serious neurological morbidity and mortality mainly because of the absence of effective treatment. Therefore, we reviewed the molecular mechanisms involved in the development of the cerebral vasospasm based on the experimental data in the two-hemorrhage canine model. The characteristic feature of vasospasm is a continuous elevation of intracellul Read More

Platelet aggregation induced by stirring of a platelet suspension after activation by the exogenous addition of stimulants, such as ADP, epinephrine and thrombin, has long been used as a platelet function test, and for the screening of antiplatelet agents. Since platelet aggregation has been demonstrated to be mediated exclusively by the binding of plasma fibrinogen to the activated GP IIb / IIIa, anti-GP IIb / IIIa agents, which Read More

Fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) is expressed ubiquitously in mesodermal and neuroectodermal cells. Human FGF2 occurs in isoforms translated from a common mRNA by alternative use of AUG (low-molecular weight isoforms) and CUG (high-molecular weight isoforms) start codons. Whereas the high-molecular weight isoforms function in an intracrine manner, the low-molecular weight isoform functions as autocrine, Read More

There is increasing evidence that dietary supplementation, such as L-arginine, anti-oxidant vitamins, soy phytoestrogens, flavonoids and omega-3 fatty acids exert vascular protective benefits particularly in terms of restoring endothelial function in cardiovascular disease states. The endothelium has been a major focus over the past 20 years as being a primary site at which dysfunction occurs in association with, and Read More

The predominant isoform of the endothelin peptide family, endothelin-1 (ET-1) exerts various biological effects. These include effects on arterial smooth muscle cells causing intense vasoconstriction and stimulation of cardiac cells. ET-1 promotes changes in cardiomyocytes that are consistent with electrical remodelling such as changes in ionic current density and inhomogeneous prolongation of action potential duration resulti Read More

Elevated peripheral vascular tone has been proposed as one of the detrimental factors causing increased cardiac after load and reduced exercise capacity in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). A number of studies have shown impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilation in limb resistance and conduit vessels in CHF, suggesting that this is one of the important etiologies of vascular dysfunction. Several clinical trial Read More

Spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to profound haemodynamic changes. Constant outflows from the central autonomic pattern generators modulate the activity of the spinal sympathetic neurons. Sudden loss of communication between these centers and the sympathetic neurons in the intermediolateral thoracic and lumbar spinal cord leads to spinal shock. After high SCI, experimental data demonstrated a brief hyperte Read More

When a spontaneous autoxidation of arachidonic acid to prostaglandin-like products was first described almost 40 years ago, it was thought to be an artifact that interfered with the detection of enzymatically generated prostaglandins. It has now been generally accepted that the autoxidation of arachidonic acid occurs in vivo and leads to formation of isoprostanes and other products. Sensitive methods can detect the isoprosta Read More