Protection by iloprost of the myocardial contractility and rhythmicity in frog ventricular strips

Iloprost Maintains Acetylcholine Relaxations of Isolated Rabbit Aortic Strips Submitted to Hypoxia

“…The results of the present study clearly show that iloprost prevents the loss of functional activity of the vascular endothelium during hypoxia. Although the chemical substance released from endothe-Hum mimics some characteristics of nitric oxide [10] it is well established that various stimuli such as ACh, bradykinin, substance P, and Ca2+ ionophore A23187 can cause the release of EDRF from vascular endothelium [7], EDRF may participate in the vascular homeostasis modulating the effect of several vasoactive substances [14], Recently, tissueprotective activity of iloprost has been de scribed in several models of tissue damage [1,3,9,12], The functional protective activ ity of iloprost has also been shown in iso lated rat perfused heart against hypothermic arrest [8] and in restraint-cold stress-induced gastric mucosal damage [15]. Thus, consid ering the humoral activity of vascular endo thelium, the decrease in EDRF during hyp oxia may indicate a damage in endothelial cells.…”

“…Iloprost has recently been synthesized and has a sim ilar profile of action as natural PGH [for review, see 11 ]. The tissue-protective activ ity of iloprost against hypoxia has been ob served in frog ventricular strips [1], in iso lated rat perfused lung [2] and in pig kidney [9]; in the rat, isolated perfused lung against angiotensin II (All) induced edema [12] and in the liver when cell damage was induced by carbon tetrachloride [3].…”