Age-Related Alterations in Endothelial Function of Femoral Artery in Young SHR and WKY Rats

Table 1

Age-related effect on basic biometric and vascular parameters of the femoral artery of juvenile and young adult Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) and spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR).

	WKY		SHR
	7 weeks	22 weeks	7 weeks	22 weeks
BW (g)	168 ± 8	416 ± 12*	135 ± 4^x	382 ± 8^*x
BP (mmHg)	114 ± 2	106 ± 2	159 ± 4^x	191 ± 3^*x
HR (bpm)	419 ± 13	405 ± 14	545 ± 10^x	521 ± 19^x
LVW/BW (mg/g)	1.99 ± 0.03	1.44 ± 0.03*	2.35 ± 0.06^x	2.18 ± 0.05^*x
ND (𝜇m)	649 ± 17	769 ± 12*	556 ± 20^x	690 ± 13^*x
Ser (mN/mm)	5.63 ± 0.25	7.41 ± 0.15*	5.90 ± 0.40	6.05 ± 0.50^x
SerL-NAME (mN/mm)	7.03 ± 0.45^†	8.94 ± 0.31^*†	7.44 ± 0.38^†	7.80 ± 0.47^†
𝐸maxACh (mN/mm)	4.50 ± 0.21	4.80 ± 0.15	3.40 ± 0.25^x	2.83 ± 0.19^x
𝐸maxL-NAME (mN/mm)	3.38 ± 0.25^†	4.54 ± 0.36*	1.57 ± 0.20^x†	1.99 ± 0.40^x†
𝐸maxSNP (%)	95.3 ± 0.9	93.9 ± 1.0	98.6 ± 0.8	94.0 ± 0.8
KPSS (mN/mm)	6.54 ± 0.61	9.17 ± 0.90*	7.42 ± 0.63	9.78 ± 0.48*

ACh: acetylcholine; BW: body weight; BP: blood pressure; E _{max ACh}: maximal acetylcholine-induced relaxation based on individual concentration-response curves; 𝐸_maxL-NAME: maximal acetylcholine-induced relaxation after L-NAME based on individual concentration-response curves; 𝐸_maxSNP: maximal sodium nitroprusside-induced relaxation based on individual concentration-response curves; HR: heart rate; KPSS: high-potassium physiological salt solution; L-NAME: N^G-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester; LVW: left heart ventricle weight; ND: normalized diameter of the femoral artery at 13.3 kPa calculated within the normalization procedure; Ser: vascular constriction induced by serotonin (1 𝜇mol/L); Ser_L-NAME: vascular constriction induced by serotonin (1 𝜇mol/L) after L-NAME; SNP: sodium nitroprusside. Results are mean ± S.E.M. of 6–10 rats. ^x𝑃<0.05 compared to age-matched WKY (SHR-7 versus WKY-7, SHR-22 versus WKY-22), *𝑃<0.05 compared to juvenile rats (WKY-22 versus WKY-7, SHR-22 versus SHR-7), and ^†𝑃<0.05 compared to the respective value before L-NAME.