Fig. 3.

Ex vivo experiments in human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells and pulmonary arteries. a Effect of BRL37344 on hypoxia-induced proliferation of human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cell proliferation. Cell proliferation was measured by cytometry after 72 h of hypoxia exposure. Data represent mean value and SD of three independent experiments. *p < 0.05; NS non significant. b Human b3AR mRNA expression in human pulmonary arteries (N = 10). Amplification curves for hb3AR (blue) and 18S (green) mRNA expression. The values of the median Ct (IQR) are shown in the table. c Vasodilator effect of BRL37344 on human pulmonary arteries (N = 10). Relaxation of small pulmonary arteries to cumulative concentrations of BRL37344, expressed as % of contraction to norepinephrine (NE). Maximal NE response was 18,495 (3420) mN. Values are mean ± SD