Definition
Nitric oxide synthase (NOS) is an enzyme which catalyzes the formation of nitric oxide (NO). NO is a free radical gas, which acts as a vasodilator, and is formed from the amino acid arginine. NOS comprises a family of enzymes which were first described in 1989. NOS is present in the human body in three distinct isoforms: neuronal NOS (nNOS) found predominantly in neuronal tissue, inducible NOS (iNOS) being inducible in a wide range of cells and tissues, and endothelial NOS (eNOS) which was first found in vascular endothelial cells.
Description
Three distinct genes for the human NOS isoforms exist, with 51–57% homology between the human isoforms in primary amino acid sequence. The similarity in genomic structure indicates a common ancestral NOS gene. The isoforms are classified by the tissue in which they were originally found, although it is now...
References and Further Reading
Packer, L. (Ed.). (1996). Nitric oxide, part A: Sources and detection of NO; NO synthase: Sources and detection of NO; NO synthase pt. A (methods in enzymology) (Vol. 268). San Diego: Academic.
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Aldred, S. (2019). Nitric Oxide Synthase (NOS). In: Gellman, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_1229-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_1229-2
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