Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Mar 1997
The relaxant effect of ketamine on guinea pig airway smooth muscle is epithelium-independent.
Airway epithelial cells and vascular endothelial cells modulate the tone of the underlying smooth muscle by releasing relaxing factors such as prostanoids and nitric oxide (NO). In the present study, we investigated whether the relaxant effect of ketamine depends on any of the epithelium-derived relaxing factors. Tracheae of female guinea pigs were cut spirally into strips (15 x 3 mm) and mounted in water-jacketed organ baths filled with Krebs-bicarbonate buffer aerated with a mixture of 95% O2 and 5% CO2 at 37 degrees C. ⋯ L-NAME did not influence the relaxant effect of ketamine on tracheae contracted by either histamine (the IC50 of ketamine = 1.6 +/- 0.05 x 10(-3) M in control strips and 1.6 +/- 0.05 x 10(-3) M in strips pretreated with L-NAME, P > 0.05) or carbachol (the IC50 of ketamine = 2.6 +/- 0.04 x 10(-4) M in control strips and 2.3 +/- 0.01 x 10(-4) M in trips pretreated with L-NAME, P > 0.05). These results indicate that neither the mechanical removal of the tracheal epithelium nor the blockade of the release of potent mediators from tracheal epithelial cells influence the relaxant effect of ketamine on guinea pig tracheal strips contracted by histamine or carbachol. We conclude that ketamine relaxes the airway smooth muscle by an epithelium-independent mechanism.