RESULTS 106 II. EFFECTS OF L-ARGININE AND L-NAME TREATMENTS ON EXPRESSION OF nNOS IN THE GUINEA PIG URINARY BLADDER AFTER PBOO 1. Bladder Weight The bladder weight represented the actual weight of the organ immediately upon its removal from the body and blotted dry (Table 4). All animals subjected to PBOO showed bladder hypertrophy as reflected by the significant increase in bladder weight, regardless of saline or drug treatment, when compared with the sham-operated control. The value of sham-operated control was consistent with the previous part of present study. Bladders were heaviest in the saline and L-arginine treated animals; however, no significant difference between these two groups was observed. In the L-NAME treated animals, the increase in bladder weight was not as high when compared with the saline and L-arginine treated groups. To exclude the effects of body weight variance on the bladder weight, the value of the bladder weight was corrected against the animal’s body weight and expressed as ratio between the two (Table 4). The bladder/body weight ratio showed the same trend of increase as bladder wet weight, when compared with sham-operated animals. The bladder/body weight ratio in the L-arginine treated animals was moderately decreased when compared with that of saline treated animals (0.00308 to 0.00324), but the difference was not statistically significant. When compared between the saline and L-NAME treated groups, the bladder/body weight ratio in the latter group (0.00252) was markedly reduced (p . staining was less evident (Fig. 28 F). RESULTS 110 Fig. 26 . Intramural ganglia in the urinary bladder of saline treated guinea pigs killed after 4-week PBOO: A. Clusters of intensely stained intramural. RESULTS 106 II. EFFECTS OF L-ARGININE AND L-NAME TREATMENTS ON EXPRESSION OF nNOS IN THE GUINEA PIG URINARY BLADDER AFTER PBOO 1. Bladder Weight The bladder weight represented the actual weight of the organ. (Fig. 29 ) . Fig. 29 . Western blot analysis of nNOS expression in guinea pig bladder after 4 weeks PBOO with saline or drug treatment. The upper panel shows the typical image of guinea pig bladder sample