Molecular and Functional Basis Established for Nitric Oxide Joining Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide in Respiratory Cycle

Newswise — Professor Jonathan Stamler’s latest findings regarding nitric oxide have the potential to reshape fundamentally the way we think about the respiratory system – and offer new avenues to save lives. It may be time to rewrite the textbooks.

Scientific dogma has the respiration process involving only two elements — oxygen and carbon dioxide. Specifically, the delivery of oxygen from lungs to tissues, and the removal of the waste product, carbon dioxide, through exhaling.

Recently published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Stamler and colleagues demonstrate that nitric oxide is essential for the delivery of oxygen to the cells and tissues that need it.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/632497/?sc=mwhn