SNOR and wheeze: the asthma enzyme?
Conventionally, asthma is defined as involving both airway inflammation and airway smooth muscle hyper-responsiveness. However, Que and coworkers have recently uncoupled these concepts, showing that mice lacking an S-nitrosothiol reductase have allergen-induced airway inflammation but do not have airway hyper-responsiveness. These data are consistent with recent clinical evidence that: (i) S-nitrosothiol signaling is abnormal in human asthma, (ii) nitric oxide in exhaled air might be only a biomarker for the metabolism of more physiologically relevant nitrogen oxides and (iii) the biochemical response to airway inflammation is central to asthma pathophysiology.
Henderson
Edward M
EM
Pediatric Respiratory Medicine, University of Virginia Health System, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA.
Gaston
Benjamin
B
D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase; D000818:Animals; D001249:Asthma / Q000201:enzymology*; D005980:Glutathione Reductase / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D008954:Models, Biological; D009569:Nitric Oxide / Q000378:metabolism*; D019001:Nitric Oxide Synthase / Q000378:metabolism*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*
D009569:Nitric Oxide; C483598:Adh5 protein, mouse; D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase; D019001:Nitric Oxide Synthase; D005980:Glutathione Reductase