Figure 2

Effects of 10 ?M Y-27632 on FBS-induced shrinkage in organ-cultured rabbit mesenteric arterial rings. (A) Diagram for experimental design. The arterial rings that were isolated from the first branch of the rabbit mesenteric artery were cultured with an FBS-supplemented DMEM in the absence and presence of 10 ?M Y-27632. (B) Representative arterial ring images from days 1, 4, and 7 in an FBS-supplemented DMEM in the absence (top) and presence (bottom) of Y-27632. The dark spot in the lumen of the arterial ring is the image of a supporting pin, and the background in the each image is the part of the index number written at the bottom of the organ culture plate. (C) Representative immunofluorescence images acquired from the longitudinally sectioned area of arterial rings in each experimental condition. The images of the filamentous actin (red), elastin (green), and nucleus (blue) were overlaid. (D) Quantitative summary for the smooth muscle cell number per unit area of the smooth muscle layer between the experimental groups. For average, the smooth muscle cell numbers per unit area of the freshly isolated smooth muscle layer were normalized to 100%. The results are expressed as mean ? S.E.M. (n = 4).