title: [Intercellular gap junctions in corporal smooth muscle].
abstract: The contractility of corporal smooth muscle plays a critical role in human penile erectile process. Understanding the initiation, maintenance and modulation of corporal smooth muscle tone is a prequisite to improve understanding, diagnosis and treatment of erectile dysfunction. Despite this fact, indentification of both the precise mechanistic basis by which various agents exert their effects on individual corporal smooth muscle cells, moreover, the process by which these signals are spread among the diverse array of parenchymal cells in the paired corporal, remain somewhat of a physiological enigma. Therefore, this article aims at: 1. to review current knowledge of the regulation of corporal smooth muscle tone at the cellular and molecular level; 2. to review various methods used in the study of gap junction channel.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430030, China.
authors.forename: Yong-Fang
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.forename: Ji-Hong
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017630:Connexins / Q000502:physiology; D017629:Gap Junctions / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007365:Intercellular Junctions / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009130:Muscle, Smooth / Q000502:physiology*; D010413:Penis / Q000166:cytology*
chemical_list: D017630:Connexins