S-Nitrosothiols have generated considerable interest due to their ability to act as nitric oxide (NO) donors and due to their possible involvement in bioregulatory systems-e.g., NO transfer reactions. Elucidation of the reaction pathways involved in the modification of the thiol group by S-nitrosothiols is important for understanding the role of S-nitroso compounds in vivo. The modification of glutathione (GSH) in the presence of S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) was examined as a model reaction. Incubation of GSNO (1 mM) with GSH at various concentrations (1-10 mM) in phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) yielded oxidized glutathione, nitrite, nitrous oxide, and ammonia as end products. The product yields were dependent on the concentrations of GSH and oxygen. Transient signals corresponding to GSH conjugates, which increased by one mass unit when the reaction was carried out with 15 N-labeled GSNO, were identified by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. When morpholine was present in the reaction system, N-nitrosomorpholine was formed. Increasing concentrations of either phosphate or GSH led to lower yields of N-nitrosomorpholine. The inhibitory effect of phosphate may be due to reaction with the nitrosating agent, nitrous anhydride (N 2 O 3 ), formed by oxidation of NO. This supports the release of NO during the reaction of GSNO with GSH. The products noted above account quantitatively for virtually all of the GSNO nitrogen consumed during the reaction, and it is now possible to construct a complete set of pathways for the complex transformations arising from GSNO ؉ GSH.S-Nitrosothiols, RSNO, with certain exceptions, are unstable in aqueous solution. For example, S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) undergoes decomposition over hours, whereas Snitrosocysteine has a half-life of less than 2 min. The initial step in the decomposition of RSNO is believed to be homolytic cleavage of the SON bond to give nitric oxide (NO) and a thiyl radical (1, 2). These compounds are involved in many bioregulatory functions, including vasodilation and inhibition of platelet aggregation. The existence of more stable transport forms of NO has been postulated in view of the short half-life of authentic NO in vivo (3). Low molecular weight thiols such as cysteine, glutathione (GSH), and penicillamine are prime candidates for such carrier molecules, and they can form S-nitrosothiols on reaction with oxides of nitrogen (4). It has been assumed that the biological effects of these compounds are due to the spontaneous release of NO; however, this hypothesis is not supported by currently available data (5-7).Although a few studies have been carried out in an attempt to determine the reaction products and to deduce the mechanism of the modification of the thiol group by S-nitrosothiols, the experiments were purely qualitative and no clear mechanistic picture has emerged (8,9). In this report, we describe the reaction of GSNO with GSH, a tripeptide with intracelluclar concentrations as high as 10 mM (10). It is involved in the cell's antioxidant defens...

The S-nitroso adducts of nitric oxide (NO) may serve as carriers of NO and play a role in cell signaling and/or cytotoxicity. A quantitative understanding of the kinetics of S-nitrosothiol formation in solutions containing NO and O2 is important for understanding these roles of S-nitroso compounds in vivo. Rates of S-nitrosation in aqueous solutions were investigated for three thiols: glutathione, N-acetylcysteine, and N-acetylpenicillamine. Nitrous anhydride (N2O3), an intermediate in the formation of nitrite from NO and O2, is the most likely NO donor for N-nitrosation of amines as well as for S-nitrosation of thiols, at physiological pH. This motivated the use of a competitive kinetics approach, in which the rates of thiol nitrosation were compared with that of a secondary amine, morpholine. The kinetic studies were carried out with known amounts of NO and O2 in solutions containing one thiol (400 microM) and morpholine (200-5700 microM) in 0.01 M phosphate buffer at pH 7.4 and 23 degrees C. It was found that disulfide formation, transnitrosation reactions, and decomposition of the S-nitrosothiols was expressed as k7[N2O3][RSH], where RSH represents the thiol. The rate constant for S-nitrosation relative to that for N2O3 hydrolysis (k4) was found to be k7/k4 = (4.15 +/- 0.28) x 10(4), (2.11 +/- 0.11) x 10(4), and (0.48 +/- 0.04) x 10(4) M-1 for glutathione, N-acetylcysteine, and N-acetylpenicillamine, respectively. The overall (observed) rates of nitrosothiol formation reflect the fact that [N2O3] varies [NO]2[O2] and that [N2O3] also depends on [RSH] and the concentration of phosphate. Using a detailed kinetic model to account for these effects, the present results could be reconciled with apparently dissimilar findings reported previously by others.

A reaction-diffusion model was developed to predict the fate of nitric oxide (NO) released by cells of the immune system. The model was used to analyze data obtained previously using macrophages attached to microcarrier beads suspended in a stirred vessel. Activated macrophages synthesize NO, which is oxidized in the culture medium by molecular oxygen and superoxide (O2-, also released by the cells), yielding mainly nitrite (NO2-) and nitrate (NO3-) as the respective end products. In the analysis the reactor was divided into a "stagnant film" with position-dependent concentrations adjacent to a representative carrier bead and a well-mixed bulk solution. It was found that the concentration of NO was relatively uniform in the film. In contrast, essentially all of the O2- was calculated to be consumed within approximately 2 microm of the cell surfaces, due to its reaction with NO to yield peroxynitrite. The decomposition of peroxynitrite caused its concentration to fall to nearly zero over a distance of approximately 30 microm from the cells. Although the film regions (which had an effective thickness of 63 microm) comprised just 2% of the reactor volume and were predicted to account for only 6% of the NO2- formation under control conditions, they were calculated to be responsible for 99% of the NO3- formation. Superoxide dismutase in the medium (at 3.2 microM) was predicted to lower the ratio of NO3- to NO2- formation rates from near unity to <0.5, in reasonable agreement with the data. The NO3-/NO2- ratio was predicted to vary exponentially with the ratio of O2- to NO release rates from the cells. Recently reported reactions involving CO2 and bicarbonate were found to have important effects on the concentrations of peroxynitrite and nitrous anhydride, two of the compounds that have been implicated in NO cytotoxicity and mutagenesis.