Blood outgrowth smooth muscle cells offer the means to study vascular cells without the requirement for surgery providing opportunities for drug discovery, tissue engineering and personalised medicine. However, little is known about these cells which has meant their therapeutic potential remains unexplored. Our objective was to investigate for the first time the ability of blood outgrowth smooth muscle cells and vessel derived smooth muscle cells to sense the thromboxane mimetic U46619 by
measuring intracellular calcium elevation and contraction. U46619 (10 26 -6
M) increased cytosolic calcium in blood outgrowth smooth muscle cells fibroblasts. Increased calcium signal peaked between 10-20 seconds after U46619 in both smooth
muscle cell types. Importantly, U46619 (10-9 to 10-6
M) induced concentration-dependent contractions of both blood outgrowth smooth muscle cells and vascular smooth muscle cells but not in fibroblasts. In summary, we show that functional responses of blood outgrowth smooth muscle cells are in line with vascular smooth muscle cells providing critical evidence of their application in biomedical research.