Figure 2.

Inhibition of HSP70 further impairs vascular phasic ($A_{phasic}$) and tonic ($A_{tonic}$) contraction in the aorta of middle-aged rats. (A) Protein expression levels of HSP70 (HSPA1A, HSPA1L, and HSPA8) in aortas of young and middle-aged rats. Total protein expression levels were normalized to GAPDH. (B) Time vs. force curves for aortic samples isolated from young and middle-aged rats and stimulated with phenylephrine (10⁻⁵ mol/L) for 10 min. Samples from middle-aged animals (n = 6) were incubated with VER1550008 (10⁻⁵ mol/L) for 30 min before exposure to phenylephrine. The continuous line represents the mean, and the traced lines depict the SEM. (C) E_max of the phasic ($A_{phasic}$) and tonic ($A_{phasic}$) parts of the curve. (D) Schematic demonstrating that aging impairs vascular HSP70 expression. Panel D was created with BioRender.com (accessed on 16 July 2021). Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. (n = 4–6), * p < 0.05 and ns. p > 0.05 vs. young, and # p < 0.05 vs. middle-aged.