Figure 3.

Serotonin (5-HT) dose response curve of rat aortic rings with and without perivascular fat with and without preincubation with PPG (30 min, 10 mmol/l). *p<0.05, n=9 in groups without preincubation. n=8 for groups with PPG. Isometric contractions of isolated male adult rat aortic vessels. Perivascular fat and connective tissue were either removed ((-) fat) or left intact ((+) fat) as previously described by Löhn et al. (17, 18, 20, 38). PPG had no effects on (-) fat rings (not shown). Tension is expressed as a percentage of the steady state tension (100%) obtained with isotonic external 60 mmol/l KCl (28). A value of p less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant; n represents the number of arteries tested.