Vasorelaxant Effects of the Vitex Agnus-Castus Extract

Figure 2

Effect of endothelial denudation on VACE relaxant effect after the PE-induced muscle contraction in isolated rabbit aorta. (a). Original representative tracings in force/time of isolated rabbit ASM before (untreated) and after PE (0.5 μM)-induced, and after reaching the plateau, following the ACh (1 μM)-induced relaxation to determine endothelium integrity in endothelium-intact ((a) upper left) and endothelium-denuded ((a) upper right). To test the integrity of smooth muscle after the endothelium removal, the aorta rings were precontracted with KCl (80 mM) integrity in endothelium-intact ((a) lower left) and endothelium-denuded ((a) lower right). (b) Data are shown as the arithmetic means ± SEM (n = 7-8) and expressed as the contraction force (g) of maximal contraction induced by PE (0.5 µM) followed with VACE treatment (0.15–0.75 mg/mL) of aortic rings with or without endothelium, respectively. n indicates the number of different rabbits from which descending thoracic aortic rings were derived. compared between endothelium-denuded and endothelium-intact aortic rings.

(a)

(b)