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Nature Cell Biology 3, E46–E49 (1 February 2001) | doi:10.1038/35055152

S-nitrosylation: spectrum and specificity

Douglas T. Hess , Akio Matsumoto , Raphael Nudelman & Jonathan S. Stamler

The award of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology was based upon the earlier and seminal demonstration that nitric oxide (NO) generated by endothelial cells relaxes vascular smooth muscle through activation of guanylate cyclase. These findings provided a preliminary perspective from which NO could be viewed as a freely-diffusible second messenger with a promiscuous sphere of influence, that acts largely through regulation of cyclic GMP (cGMP) production.