Research Methods in Life Sciences Commons^™

The Mechanics And Regulation Of Rat Aortic Smooth Muscle Contraction: Implications Of Cytoskeletal Remodeling, Protein Phosphorylations, And Microtubule-Based Kinase Transport, Alison Summers Battistella-Patterson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The exact nature of the mechanisms and the regulation of vascular smooth muscle contraction is not well understood. To better understand these processes, we examined two systems involved in smooth muscle contraction, the cytoskeleton and the protein kinases. In order to study the role of the cytoskeleton in smooth muscle contraction, we examined the contractile and mechanical effects of cytoskeleton disruption. We found that the relationship between passive tension applied to aortic rings and the resulting increase in tissue length was nearly linear over the range of 1 g to 15 g. However, even with increasing tissue length, within the …