Figure 8.

Functional evidence of decreased mobilization of intracellular calcium in resistance arteries from rats exposed to a high-salt diet. Compared with responses obtained in vessels from the regular chow (also indicated as “RC”), the small mesenteric arteries from 4% NaCl group maintained in calcium-free nutritive solution presented unaltered responses to CaCl₂ (a), but were less reactive to caffeine (b), and phenylephrine (PE, c), which was prevented by thapsigargin (d). Panels e and f show the increase in the vascular tone evoked by CaCl₂ overload in small mesenteric arteries from regular chow and 4% NaCl groups before (e) and after (f) incubation with thapsigargin. The results are the mean ± SEM of 5–6 preparations from different animals per group. *P < 0.05 compared with the respective control (regular chow group, RC).