The present study was performed to evaluate the role of neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS)-derived nitric oxide (NO) during the developmental phase of hypertension in transgenic rats harboring the mouse Ren-2 renin gene (TGR). The first aim of the present study was to examine nNOS mRNA expression in the renal cortex and to assess the renal functional responses to intrarenal nNOS inhibition b...

Nitric oxide (NO) relaxes the internal anal sphincter (IAS), but its enzymatic source(s) remains unknown; neuronal (nNOS) and endothelial (eNOS) NO synthase (NOS) isoforms could be involved. Also, interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) may be involved in IAS relaxation. We studied the relative roles of nNOS, eNOS, and c-Kit-expressing ICC for IAS relaxation using genetic murine models. The basal IAS...

Nitric oxide (NO), synthesized as needed by NO synthase (NOS), is involved in spinogenesis and synaptogenesis. Immature spine morphology is characteristic of fragile X syndrome (FXS). The objective of this research was to investigate and compare changes of postnatal neuronal NOS (nNOS) expression in the hippocampus of male fragile X mental retardation 1 gene knockout mice (FMR1 KO mice, the ani...

Evidence is presented that RSK1 (ribosomal S6 kinase 1), a downstream target of MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase), directly phosphorylates nNOS (neuronal nitric oxide synthase) on Ser847 in response to mitogens. The phosphorylation thus increases greatly following EGF (epidermal growth factor) treatment of rat pituitary tumour GH3 cells and is reduced by exposure to the MEK (MAPK/extracel...

Pharmacological evidence suggests a functional role for spinal nitric oxide (NO) in the modulation of thermal and/or inflammatory hyperalgesia. To assess the role of NO in nerve injury-induced tactile allodynia, we examined neuronal NO synthase (nNOS) expression in the spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia (DRG) of rats with tactile allodynia because of either tight ligation of the left fifth and...

The fear conditioning paradigm is used to investigate the roles of various genes, neurotransmitters, and substrates in the formation of fear learning related to contextual and auditory cues. In the brain, nitric oxide (NO) produced by neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) functions as a retrograde neuronal messenger that facilitates synaptic plasticity, including the late phase of long-term pot...

Although the pelvic autonomic plexus may be considered a mixture of sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves, little information on its composite fibers is available. Using 10 donated elderly cadavers, we investigated in detail the topohistology of nerve fibers in the posterior part of the periprostatic region in males and the infero-anterior part of the paracolpium in females. Neuronal nitric ox...

PURPOSE: The current study investigated role of nitric oxide (NO), produced by neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) on heart rate variability (HRV) in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). METODS: The selective neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) inhibition was performed by application of 7-Nitroindazole (7NI) in conscious normotensive Wistar rats (n=10) and in SHR (n=10), intravenously in ...

In mammalian skeletal muscle, neuronal-type NO synthase (nNOS) is found enriched at neuromuscular endplates. Here we demonstrate the colocalization of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR, stained with α-bungarotoxin) and nNOS (stained with a specific antibody) in murine C2C12 myotubes. However, co-immunoprecipitation experiments demonstrated no evidence for a direct protein-protein asso...

Constitutive isoforms of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) are activated by transient binding of Ca(2+)/Calmodulin. Here, we characterize the binding of Calmodulin to purified neuronal NOS (nNOS). [125I]Calmodulin bound to a single class of non-interacting and high affinity sites on nNOS. [125I]Calmodulin binding achieved rapid saturation, was linear with nNOS concentration, and exhibited a strict de...