Effect of hydrogen sulphide on motor activity in mice jejunum

Biological activity of hydrogen sulphide in smooth muscle of vessel and non-vessel tissue are contradictory. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of hydrogen sulphide on smooth activity of muscle mice jejunum.

Experiments were performed on mice jejunum and motor activity was recorded from in vitro segments of jejunum ~ 4 cm in length. jejunal segments were mounted horizontally in separate perfusion chamber. Furthermore, using vanilloid receptor 1 deficient mice (VR 1-/-) we tested hypothesis that extrinsic sensory nerves mediated alterations, in motor activity responses in the presence different concentration of of hydrogen sulphide (100-3000 μM).

Serosal application of NaHS (as hydrogen sulphide donor) produced a dose-dependent inhibition of motor activity that are not significantly different between VR 1-/- and VR 1 +/+ mice. In the presence of TTX (1μM) NaHS (300µM) caused a reduction in basal tone (19.5%, p<0.05, n=5) and inhibited the contraction evoked by 30µM bethanechol by 55% (n=5, p<0.05).

This study showed that hydrogen sulphide is an important motor activity inhibitor in mice jejunum.