Fig. 3.

Effect of hypercholesterolemia on whole cell Kv current in coronary arteriolar smooth muscle cells. A: representative current traces for whole cell Kv current of cells from NC-Sed, HC-Sed, NC-Ex, and HC-Ex animals. Currents were elicited by 500-ms step depolarizations (tp) to potentials ranging from −60 to +20 (in 10-mV increments) from a holding potential (hp) of −80 mV. B and C: comparison of current-voltage (I-V) relationships obtained by plotting mean current at the end of the steps as a function of the indicated test potential. Whole cell Kv current was significantly diminished in myocytes from HC-Sed compared with NC-Sed animals (B). In contrast, Kv currents in cells from NC-Ex and HC-Ex did not differ (C). A subset of data in B has been published previously (19). Numbers in parentheses indicate number of pigs, cells. Values are means ± SE of the number of cells in parentheses. *P ≤ 0.05.