Overproduction of nitric oxide (NO) can cause neuronal damage, contributing to the pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative diseases and stroke (i.e., focal cerebral ischemia). NO can mediate neurotoxic effects at least in part via protein S-nitrosylation, a reaction that covalently attaches NO to a cysteine thiol (or thiolate anion) to form an S-nitrosothiol. Recently, the tyrosine phosphatase Src homology region 2-containing protein tyrosine phosphatase-2 (SHP-2) and its downstream pathways have emerged as important mediators of cell survival. Here we report that in neurons and brain tissue NO can S-nitrosylate SHP-2 at its active site cysteine, forming S-nitrosylated SHP-2 (SNO-SHP-2). We found that NMDA exposure in vitro and transient focal cerebral ischemia in vivo resulted in increased levels of SNO-SHP-2. S-Nitrosylation of SHP-2 inhibited its phosphatase activity, blocking downstream activation of the neuroprotective physiological ERK1/2 pathway, thus increasing susceptibility to NMDA receptor-mediated excitotoxicity. These findings suggest that formation of SNO-SHP-2 represents a key chemical reaction contributing to excitotoxic damage in stroke and potentially other neurological disorders.nitrosative stress | reactive oxygen species | reactive nitrogen species E xcessive activation of NMDA receptors (NMDARs) activates neuronal nitric oxide (NO) synthase (NOS; nNOS) (1) and results in overproduction of NO in the brain, contributing to neuronal damage in a number of neurodegenerative diseases and cerebral ischemia (2, 3). The NO group can react with specific cysteine thiols to regulate protein activity in a process called Snitrosylation (4, 5). As a ubiquitous posttranslational modification, S-nitrosylation has been found to modulate a broad spectrum of proteins affecting neuronal development, synaptic plasticity, protein folding, and cell death (3). Recent discoveries have demonstrated that excessive NO has a negative effect on neuronal survival via S-nitrosylation of a number of neurodegenerative disease-associated proteins, including parkin, protein disulfide isomerase, GAPDH, Cdk5, and dynamin-related protein 1 (6-11).The Src homology-2 domain-containing phosphatase (SHP-2), a member of the ubiquitously expressed protein-tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) family, contains a cysteine residue at its active site (12). SHP-2 is known to localize in the cytosol and nucleus, and plays important biological functions in response to various growth factors, hormones, and cytokines (13). Recent studies have shown that activation of SHP-2 increases survival of various cell types, including neural progenitor cells and neurons, through activation of ERK1/2 (14, 15). SHP-2 is thought to promote ERK signaling by dephosphorylating negative regulators of the Ras-ERK pathway, such as PAG/Cbp, Ras-GAP, or GAP-binding sites on receptor tyrosine kinases or Sprouty proteins (16)(17)(18)(19)(20). Additionally, transient activation of the ERK1/2 signaling cascade has been implicated in regulating neuronal survival after stroke (21-...