The role of glutathione in the transport and catabolism of nitric oxide

Abstract

Nitric oxide acts as a neuronal and vascular messenger implying diffusion through intracellular environments containing 5-10 mM glutathione. Nitric oxide reacts with glutathione under aerobic conditions generating S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO). GSNO reacts with glutathione (k = 8.3 × 10 -3 M -1" S -1) to generate nitrous oxide and glutathione disulfide (GSSG). Anaerobically, glutathione reacts with nitric oxide generating nitrous oxide and GSSG (k = 4.8 X 10 -4 s -1 at 5 mM GSH). In both aerobic and anaerobic situations the nitroxyl anion may be an intermediate in the synthesis of nitrous oxide and, under aerobic conditions, nitroxyl anion may generate peroxynitrite. We present a hypothesis for the intraeellular interaction between nitric oxide and glutathione.

Effect of N-acetylcysteine in liver ischemia-reperfusion injury after 30% hepatectomy in mice

“…It has been proposed that nitric oxide has an important role in the vascular congestion improvement induced by N-acetylcysteine 15 .…”

“…Hogg et al 15 proposed a protective mechanism by low weight thiol, in which nitric oxide reacts with glutathione, improving the microcirculation, attenuating vascular congestion and tissue injury. Also ALT level was lower after NAC use.…”

The role of N-acetyl-cysteine in the lung remote injury after hepatic ischemia and reperfusion in rabbits

“…The rabbit a rodent to be larger and easier handling was considered appropriate for this research [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] . To these factors is associated with ease of anesthesia protocol, which provided adequate hypnosis and analgesia, an anesthetic for up to 60 minutes.…”

“…Among these, glutathione (GSH) is considered effective in ischemia stage 15,16 . GSH is synthesized by the liver in two ways, catalyzed by γ-glutamyl cysteine synthetase and glutathione synthetase, distributed through the bloodstream to all tissues.…”

How widespread is stable protein S-nitrosylation as an end-effector of protein regulation?

“…Decomposition of non-protein S-nitrosothiols in the presence of free thiols is also predicted to generate disulfides, as discussed in more detail below, although the rate of disulfide formation varies greatly. For example, rapid disulfide formation in dihydrolipoic acid though an S-nitrosothiol intermediate occurred too rapidly for the S-nitrosothiol intermediate to be detected by standard techniques [16], whereas the rate of disulfide formation is GSSG generated by GSH reacting with GSNO is predicted to be relatively slow in vitro with a rate of 8.3 × 10 −3 M −1 .s −1 [72]. How these in vitro kinetic experiments on low-molecular-weight Snitrosothiols relate to the stability of protein S-nitrosothiol, which is more relevant to this review, is less clear.…”