Fig. 1.

Characterization of the ^SM22αCaSR^{Δflox/Δflox} mouse. A: typical genotyping of wild-type (WT) and knockout (KO) mice. B: representative histological sections of aortas from WT and KO animals (n = 4). Scale bars = 100 μm. C: Western blot analysis of calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) expression with Ponceau staining as loading control (top and middle) and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SM actin; bottom) expression in endothelium-denuded and adventitia-removed, pooled aortas; n = 18 (WT) and 17 (KO) mice. D: relative mRNA expression of the full-length CaSR (exon 6–7 vs. WT) in endothelium-denuded, adventitia-removed aortas of WT and KO animals; mean (line) ± 1SD (box); n = 4. **P < 0.01, Student's t-test (performed on ΔΔCt values vs. WT). E: intracellular Ca²⁺ concentration ([Ca²⁺]_i) in freshly isolated WT and KO VSMC exposed to increasing extracellular Ca²⁺ concentration ([Ca²⁺]_o; 0.1–5 mmol/l), reported as fold changes from baseline values. Curves were fitted as hyperbolic. Data are means ± SE; n = 3 (WT) and 4–5 (KO). **P < 0.01. ***P < 0.001, two-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak posttest. +++P < 0.001, extra sum-of-squares F-test for curve comparison.