Nitric Oxide and other Diffusible Messengers

Abstract:

The era of diffusible messengers has begun in the late 1980s when a revolutionary discovery (Palmer et al., 1987) clarified that the previously described, chemically unknown compound, endothelium derived relaxing factor (EDRF) is identical with nitric oxide (NO). The scientific community was astonished by the fact that such a simple gaseous molecule as NO can play a very important physiological role in the regulation of the resistance of blood vessels. The research of nitrergic systems and processes has started with huge enthusiasm and the number of NO-related research papers increased exponentially. NO has been elected to the “Molecule of the Year” by the prestigious journal Science in 1992, and the Nobel Prize in Medicine was given to Furchgott, Ignarro and Murad “for their discoveries concerning NO as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system” in 1998, only 11 years after the original finding. The results of the last two decades revealed that NO has very important functions not only in the cardiovascular but also in the immune and nervous system. This chapter will focus primarily on the role of NO in the central and peripheral nervous system, but occasionally other areas will also be covered. In addition, other recently recognized diffusible compounds with possible neuromodulator function will also be briefly discussed.