Fig. 6. Ketamine reduces Cav1.2-stimulated mRNA and protein levels in BSM cells.

Mouse BSM strips were subjected to 50 mM KCl activation of Cav1.2 for 0–120 min and then lysed for mRNA preparation. Changes in c-fos (a n = 9 BSM strips) and c-jun (b n = 9 BSM strips) mRNA were measured by quantitative RT-PCR. Upregulation of both c-fos and c-jun were inhibited by 100 µg ml⁻¹ ketamine and by 10 µM nifedipine. c Representative immunoblot from two independent experiments showing that upregulation of c-fos and c-jun by 30 min treatment with 50 mM KCl to activate Cav1.2 was inhibited by ketamine (100 µg ml⁻¹) and by nifedipine (10 µg ml⁻¹). d summarized data (n = 5 BSM strips) of experiments similar to that shown in c. e 50 mM KCl upregulated expression and nuclear translocation of c-fos and c-jun in human BSM cells in a manner inhibited by ketamine (100 µg ml⁻¹) and rescued by Bay k8644 (200 nM). Scale bar: 20 µm. These images, representative of two separate triplicate experiments, are summarized in f (n = 38–46 BSM cells). Data are shown as box and whiskers, center line is the median of the data set, box represents 75% of the data, and bars indicates whiskers from minimum to maximum. Data are analysed by two tailed Student’s t-test. P < 0.05 is considered to be significant and P values are given above the bars. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.