Electrical properties of iridial arterioles of the rat
1 Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052; and 2 Division of Neuroscience, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia When intracellular recordings were made from iridial arterioles...
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Published in | American journal of physiology. Heart and circulatory physiology Vol. 273; no. 5; pp. H2465 - H2472 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
01.11.1997
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | 1 Department of Zoology,
University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052; and
2 Division of Neuroscience, John
Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University,
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia
When
intracellular recordings were made from iridial arterioles, the cells
had membrane potentials of about 65 mV and perivascular nerve
stimulation evoked a membrane depolarization. When these cells were
labeled with lucifer yellow, all cells that responded to perivascular
nerve stimulation had the morphological characteristics of smooth
muscle cells. Cells with the morphological characteristics of
endothelial cells were never stained. When impaled with two separate
recording electrodes, the smooth muscle layer was shown to form an
electrical syncytium with a membrane time constant of ~80 ms and an
electrical length constant of ~900 µm. At the ultrastructural
level, areas of close apposition were frequently observed between
adjacent smooth muscle cells and between adjacent endothelial cells. On
the other hand, at contacts between smooth muscle and endothelial
cells, the membranes characteristically had much larger separations.
The observations show that individual smooth muscle cells are
electrically coupled to their neighbors, but the morphological studies
raise the possibility that in these arterioles the endothelial and
muscle layers are electrically separate.
endothelial cells; smooth muscle syncytium; ultrastructure; electrical coupling |
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ISSN: | 0363-6135 0002-9513 1522-1539 2163-5773 |
DOI: | 10.1152/ajpheart.1997.273.5.H2465 |