RESEARCH ARTICLE


Potential Benefits of Peroxynitrite



Bobby D. Nossaman 1, 2, Philip J. Kadowitz 2, *
1 Critical Care Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, Ochsner Medical Center, 1514 Jefferson Highway, New Orleans, Louisiana 70121 USA
2 >Department of Pharmacology, Tulane University Medical Center, 1430 Tulane Avenue SL83, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112-2699, USA.

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2008
Volume: 2
First Page: 31
Last Page: 53
Publisher Id: TOPHARMJ-2-31
DOI: 10.2174/1874143600802010031

Article History:

Received Date: 4/3/2008
Revision Received Date: 24/3/2008
Acceptance Date: 29/4/2008
Electronic publication date: 3/6/2008
Collection year: 2008

© 2008 Nossaman et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Correspondence: * Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Pharmacology, Tulane University Medical Center, 1430 Tulane Avenue SL83, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112-2699, USA; E-mail: pkadowi@tulane.edu


Abstract

Peroxynitrite (PN) is generated by the reaction of nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide in one of the most rapid reactions in biology. Studies have reported that PN is a cytotoxic molecule that contributes to vascular injury in a number of disease states. However, it has become apparent that PN has beneficial effects including vasodilation, inhibition of platelet aggregation, inhibition of inflammatory cell adhesion, and protection against ischemia/reperfusion injury in the heart. It is our hypothesis that PN may serve to inactivate superoxide and prolong the actions of NO in the circulation. This manuscript reviews the beneficial effects of PN in the cardiovascular system.

Keywords: Nitric oxide/*metabolism, nitric oxide synthase/metabolism/physiology, peroxynitrous acid/metabolism, reactive nitrogen species/metabolism , reactive oxygen species/metabolism, endothelium, vascular/drug effects/metabolism, muscle, smooth, vascular/drug effects/*metabolism, vasodilator agents/adverse effects, oxidative stress/*physiology, vasodilation/drug effects.