Biochemistry

R.G. Knowles, M. Palacios, R.M.J. Palmer, S. Moncada, "Formation of nitric oxide from L-arginine in the central nervous system: a transduction mechanism for stimulation of the soluble guanylate cyclase," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 86, 5159-62, July 1989.

Richard Knowles (Wellcome Research Laboratories, Beckenham, Kent, U.K.): "We started our studies looking for the arginine:nitric oxide (NO) pathway in the brain because of the discovery that vascular endothelial cells synthesize NO from arginine. This finding suggested to us that the effects of arginine on crude brain guanylate cyclase, described by Takeo Deguchi [Tokyo Metropolitan University] and colleagues (Journal of Biological Chemistry, 252:7617-9, 1977; and 257:10147-51, 1982), were likely to be caused by NO formation. While we were completing these studies, a paper appeared by John Garthwaite [University of Liverpool] and colleagues (Nature, 336:385-8, 1988) on the production of an endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF)(NO)-like material by cere- bellar cells stimulated...