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The role of nitric oxide at hypothalamic and pituitary levels to alter the release of pituitary hormones: an invited commentary

At the request of the editor, I am submitting this commentary to accompany the article by Korbonits et al., which appears in this issue.

Nitric oxide has now been shown to be a very important transmitter in most organs of the body. It is a free radical and is rapidly degraded to nitrate and nitrite, with a half-life of 5–10s in aqueous solutions. Nitric oxide is produced in the body by NO synthase (NOS). There are three forms of NOS, all of which convert arginine in the presence of oxygen to equimolar quantities of NO and citrulline. The inducible form of NOS (iNOS) is produced in immune cells by bacterial lipopolysaccharide or cytokines, which combine with membrane bound receptors and act in the nucleus to induce mRNA to synthesize iNOS. This enzyme is thus produced in large quantities. The inducible enzyme does not require activation by calcium and calmodulin because

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				E. E. Muller, V. Locatelli, and D. Cocchi Neuroendocrine Control of Growth Hormone Secretion Physiol Rev, April 1, 1999; 79(2): 511 - 607. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]