ADP Receptor P2Y12 Is Expressed in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells and Stimulates Contraction in Human Blood Vessels.
Objective - ADP plays an important role in platelet aggregation by activating P2Y(12) receptors. We assessed the hypothesis that P2Y(12) receptors are expressed in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC). Methods and Results - P2Y(12) receptor mRNA was found to have a high expression among the P2 receptors in human VSMC, significantly higher than the other 2 ADP receptors (P2Y(1) and P2Y(13), real-tim