Biochemistry

Edited by: Neeraja Sankaran
S.A. Lipton, Y.B. Choi, Z.H. Pan, S.Z. Lei, H.S.V. Chen, N.J. Sucher, J. Loscalzo, D.J. Sibgel, J.S. Stamler, "A redox-based mechanism for the neuroprotective and neurodestructive effects of nitric oxide and related nitroso-compounds," Nature, 364:626-32, 1993. (Cited in 127 publications through January 1995)

Comments by Stuart A. Lipton, Harvard Medical School, and Jonathan S. Stamler, Duke University

This paper describes the effects of redox-related forms of nitric oxide--NO--on nerve cells. Jonathan S. Stamler, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center, recounts that "at the time it was published, there were many paradoxes in the NO field. For every report describing an effect, there was a report describing exactly the opposite."

"People knew it had very different effects--they just didn't know why," explains Stuart A. Lipton, an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.

The divergent responses, he says, are "due...