Investigative ophthalmology & visual science
-
Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. · Mar 1994
Relaxation of retinal pericyte contractile tone through the nitric oxide-cyclic guanosine monophosphate pathway.
Pericytes are contractile cells outside the endothelial lining of capillaries. The study investigated whether nitric oxide, known to cause relaxation of vascular smooth muscle cells, also relaxes pericytes. ⋯ Sodium nitroprusside, which releases nitric oxide, strongly relaxes pericytes through an increase of cGMP. Therefore, the presence of the endothelium-derived relaxing factor nitric oxide in the microcirculation can modulate the tone of pericytes, and it thus has the potential to influence blood flow in capillaries.