Journal: PLoS ONE
Article Title: Time-Lapse Imaging as a Tool to Investigate Contractility of the Epididymal Duct – Effects of Cgmp Signaling
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092603
Figure Lengend Snippet: Effects of sildenafil and the NO donor SNP on spontaneous contractility of caput segments of the epididymal duct (A–C). A: Visualization of contractility derived from virtual sections through the corresponding time stacks (scale bar: 100 μm) in examples of SNP and subsequent sildenafil treatment of a duct segment from the caput region. Enlarging the regions that surround the time of drug addition, indicated by colored frames, illustrate transient effects of the substances. B: Statistical analyses compared the contractile frequency during 2 minutes preceding and following the addition of the substances. A non-parametric one-way ANOVA for repeated measurements (Friedman's test for paired samples) was used followed by Dunn's test for multiple comparisons. Adjusted p-values for each comparison are given in the graphs with “*” indicating p<0.05 and “**” indicating p<0.01. Statistical analyses of SNP and sildenafil treatments show that sildenafil significantly reduced contractile activity whether given alone or after SNP. In contrast, SNP effects remained non significant. “Spont” indicates spontaneous contractile frequency. C: Visualization of sildenafil and SNP effects in another duct segment originating from caput (scale bar: 100 μm). In this example sildenafil results in a complete loss of contractility. When the NO donor SNP was added in this situation, it was without additional effect as expected. The addition of noradrenaline at the end of the experiment lead to a resumption of contractile activity indicating that the duct segment was still viable. Movies were captured at 1 frame/s.
Article Snippet: Frequencies before and after addition of the different substances were compared using a one-way ANOVA (Friedman Test for paired non-parametric data) followed by Dunn's multiple comparisons test (GraphPad Prism, version 6.02 for Windows, GraphPad Software, La Jolla, California, USA, www.graphpad.com ).
Techniques: Derivative Assay, Activity Assay
