Drug induced contraction and relaxation in mouse isolated aorta.

Possibility of using mouse isolated aorta to evaluate the effect of vasoactive agents was demonstrated. The results suggested that aortic contraction induced by the alpha adrenoceptor agonist norepinephrine was sensitive to prazosin, and the contraction induced by the membrane depolarization agent KCl was sensitive to verapamil. Clonidine acting as a partial agonist attenuated the norepinephrine or methoxamine induced contraction. Both IBMX and nitroprusside relaxed the aortic contraction. These vascular changes induced by the above vasoactive agents in mouse isolated aorta were similar to those of rat described elsewhere. The present findings suggested that mouse isolated aorta can be used as a tool to test the effect of vasoactive agents.