In harsh conditions, Caenorhabditis elegans arrests development to enter a non-aging, resistant diapause state called the dauer larva. Olfactory sensation modulates the TGF-β and insulin signaling pathways to control this developmental decision. Four mutant alleles of daf-25 (abnormal DAuer Formation) were isolated from screens for mutants exhibiting constitutive dauer formation and found to be...

Recent evidence suggests that, like nitric oxide (NO), carbon monoxide (CO), another activator of soluble guanylyl cyclase, may serve as an intercellular messenger in the brain. Heme oxygenase, which converts heme to biliverdin and CO, is abundantly expressed in the brain and is localized to discrete neuronal populations. However, evidence for the actual generation of CO by neurons is lacking. ...

Nucleotidyl cyclases, including membrane-integral and soluble adenylyl and guanylyl cyclases, are central components in a wide range of signaling pathways. These proteins are architecturally diverse, yet many of them share a conserved feature, a helical region that precedes the catalytic cyclase domain. The role of this region in cyclase dimerization has been a subject of debate. Although mutat...

Although guanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cGMP) acts as a relaxant second messenger, the regulation of intracellular cGMP has not been comprehensively studied in human airway smooth muscle. We studied the production of cGMP by cultured human airway smooth muscle cells (HASMC) after stimulation with activators of soluble guanylyl cyclase [sodium nitroprusside (SNP) and S-nitroso- N-acetylpe...