Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
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Several of the luminal endothelial glycocalyx functions are exerted via interactions with glycosidic components and sugar binding proteins with lectinic activity. One important example is the mannose receptor (MR). The MR has been detected in cell types that mediate the phagocytosis and pinocytosis of particles and solutes containing mannose. Using isolated constant pressurized rat mesenteric arteries (RMA), we evaluated the effects of a mannose polymer in the vascular tone. RMA were pre-contracted with 10µmol/L phenylephrine and carbohydrates were perfused at 20µl/min. Perfusion of free D-mannose [1nmol/L to100µmol/L] induced a concentration-dependent vasodilation of pre-contracted RMA. Perfusion of mannose polymer [1nmol/L to 100µmol/L] induced a larger effect in a concentration-dependent vasodilation. Mannose polymer's maximum effect reached a 96% of basal diameter; this significant vasodilation was not nitric oxide (NO) or cyclooxygenase (COX) dependent effect. We corroborated the binding of the mannose polymer to the endothelial lumen, by perfusion of a fluorescently labeled mannose polymer; and also, we detected a significant level of MR mRNA in whole mesenteric arteries. With all these, we proposed a novel effect of a MR in the regulation of vascular tone.