Nitric oxide has a role in multiple pathways inside the body and can be good for you, but at the same time nitric oxide can damage the body and lead to neurodegenerative diseases. The problem with nitric oxide is that there is little known about how it is acting, so figuring out how to make it do only the good things and not the bad things can be quite difficult. That is why I refer to it as the mystery molecule because we know it is in the body but we don’t have a great understanding of what it is doing.
Although there isn’t much known about nitric oxide, it has been determined that it has multiple roles in a few pathways within the body. Nitric oxide has role in the cardiovascular system and this often is due to its ability to lead to vasodilation. Due to this, it controls vascular tone and reduces blood pressure. It also has a role in the nervous system, by acting as a neurotransmitter, bringing more blood to the brain, and is important in penile erection. Once again it is shown how nitric oxides effect on vasodilation is very important. Due to the vasodilation, nitric oxide also has roles in the lungs and renal systems. It then also functions in the immune system by modulating the T cell immune response, and in the gastrointestinal tract by regulating relaxation of smooth muscles. Overall it can be seen that nitric oxide is very important in the body and that we would not be able to live without it, but from this is can also be seen that nitric oxide is acting in many areas within the body and because of this it is hard to determine how nitric oxide is acting in those different areas and the pathways in which it is doing so.
This leads me to talking about how when something goes wrong with nitric oxide in the body, it is some what of a mystery as to how we could target nitric oxide in order to treat a disease it could be causing. Due to the vast functions of nitric oxide, it is hard to tell where something is going wrong with nitric oxide and often times where the over production of nitric oxide is coming from. It seems simple that we should be able to identify where the problem is then just treat it accordingly but nitric oxide doesn’t play by those rules. Often when nitric oxide is the culprit of a neurodegenerative disease, there is a problem is being able to find a way to treat it because there are so many ways that nitric oxide over production can be occurring. For example astrocytes, which make up the blood brain barrier can contain nitric oxide synthase in them which can lead to nitric oxide over production, then there are microglial cells with are phagocytic and release nitric oxide when they engulf pathogens. Those are just two of the long list of ways in which nitric oxide can be produced and each way contains its own challenges as to how to stop nitric oxide production in that specific area.
Overall we do know the big picture components of nitric oxide as to some of its functions and the pathways it has a role in, but there is also still a lot of mystery with nitric oxide. Since nitric oxide is acting in so many different systems of the body, it is hard to pin down what is going wrong when a disease is being caused by nitric oxide. Hopefully in the future some new research will come about to help solve some of the mysteries that still lie within nitric oxide.
Nitric Oxide: The Mystery Molecule.
