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(Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 2006;26:696.)
© 2006 American Heart Association, Inc.

Brief Reviews

ATVB In Focus

Nitric Oxide Redux

Joseph Loscalzo

From the Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.

Correspondence to Dr Joseph Loscalzo, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115. E-mail jloscalzo@partners.org

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

Almost 20 years ago, endothelium-derived relaxing factor was identified as nitric oxide,^1,2 and since that time, the field has witnessed extraordinary growth and complexity. Biologists now recognize that nitric oxide is a multifunctional molecule with roles in neurotransmission, immune regulation, oxidative metabolism and oxygen delivery, inflammation, and control of cell growth, apoptosis, and necrosis, among others. The central importance of nitric oxide in human biology and pathobiology was recognized by the Nobel Committee in 1998 by their awarding the prize to Robert Furchgott, Louis Ignarro, and Ferid Murad for their seminal contributions to the field.

Among the many mechanisms by which nitric oxide exerts its effects are included its redox activities. In 1992, the year in which nitric oxide was named "molecule of the year" by Science, we summarized the complexity of these redox reactions highlighting the differences among nitrosonium, nitrogen monoxide, and nitroxyl anion as redox-active species and their relevance to biological systems.³ The redox activity of nitric oxide was appreciated by chemists, of course, but gained little attention from biologists until its reaction with superoxide to form peroxynitrite was identified in cellular systems.⁴ Over the ensuing 15 years, abundant evidence supports the importance of redox biochemistry as the basis for multifaceted biological and pathobiological actions of nitric oxide.

Redox regulation is a general biochemical mechanism for governing cell function and phenotype,⁵ and its modulation offers a novel approach to pharmacotherapeutics.⁶ The role of nitric oxide in redox regulation is amply demonstrated in its ability to participate in . . . [Full Text of this Article]