Cholinergic innervation of the mouse isolated vas deferens.

Recently, a population of nerves has been described in the aganglionic mouse vas deferens, in which electrically evoked contractions were insensitive to high concentrations of the adrenergic neurone blocker, bretylium. In this paper, the pharmacology of this nerve-evoked contraction has been examined in more detail. Bretylium (20 microM) revealed, after 5 h exposure, a new residual neurogenic contraction (20 stimuli at 10 Hz) that was tetrodotoxin-sensitive.

The sources and sequestration of Ca(2+) contributing to neuroeffector Ca(2+) transients in the mouse vas deferens.

The detection of focal Ca(2+) transients (called neuroeffector Ca(2+) transients, or NCTs) in smooth muscle of the mouse isolated vas deferens has been used to detect the packeted release of ATP from nerve terminal varicosities acting at postjunctional P2X receptors. The present study investigates the sources and sequestration of Ca(2+) in NCTs. Smooth muscle cells in whole mouse deferens were loaded with the Ca(2+) indicator Oregon Green 488 BAPTA-1 AM and viewed with a confocal microscope.