Abstract
THE involvement of smooth muscle cells (SMC) from the media of elastic arteries has been implied in the aetiology of atherosclerosis2. Aortic tissue cultures have been studied repeatedly to examine the ability of SMC to synthetise macromolecular proteins, and collagen and elastic fibres. Ross3 has shown that aortic cultured cells retained all the morphological characteristics of SMC up to week 8 of culture. By week 4 microfibrils identified as elastic fibres appeared close to the cells. On the other hand, Ouzilou et al.4 showed that the cultured aortic fragments can be used as a suitable model to study the metabolic properties of aortic smooth muscle. The explants retained, for at least a week, the ability to synthesise the proteins of the medial matrix at a rate that decreased with the age of the rabbits from which the aortic specimens were obtained.
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References
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MAUGER, J., WORCEL, M., TASSIN, J. et al. Contractility of smooth muscle cells of rabbit aorta in tissue culture. Nature 255, 337–338 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/255337a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/255337a0
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