Comparative In Vitro Effects of Calcineurin Inhibitors on Functional Vascular Relaxations of Both Rat Thoracic and Abdominal Aorta

Table 1

The comparative effects of in vitro incubation with two calcineurin inhibitors (CNI), cyclosporine (CsA, 1.0 mg/mL), or tacrolimus (Tac, 0.1 mg/mL) for 30 min duration on acetylcholine (ACh)-induced vasodilator responses in phenylephrine (PE, 1 µM)-constricted thoracic and abdominal rat aortic rings with intact endothelium.

Region	Incubation condition	ACh-DRC: Mean ± SEM values
		IC50	𝐼max
Thoracic aorta	Control	68 ± 16.4 nM	98% ± 1.3%
	CsA (1.0 mg/mL)	9.5 ± 2.55 µM**	10% ± 2.2%**
	Tac (0.1 mg/mL)	222 ± 60.2 nM*	97% ± 2.7%
Abdominal aorta	Control	50 ± 17.8 nM	100% ± 0.0%
	CsA (1.0 mg/mL)	7.0 ± 3.14 µM**	58% ± 4.94%**
	Tac (0.1 mg/mL)	215 ± 58.6 nM*	80% ± 5.79%*

^∗𝑃<0.05 and **𝑃<0.01 compared to respective control. Each value is mean ± SEM of several experiments performed using rat aortic rings isolated from 6 rats for each condition of incubation.
Note: vehicle control studies with castor oil alone yielded closely similar values like control data performed in the presence of with Kreb’s buffer alone.