VIAGRA -NITROGEN MONOXIDE GAS AND BIOLOGICAL SIGNALING

In 1998's the noble Committee awarded it's prize in medicine to three scientists for the astounding discovered that nitrogen monoxide or nitric oxide gas chemical formula NO, functions as the signaling agent that between animals cells in a wide variety of chemical processes. But until this discovery of biochemists had thought that the major chemical reactions in cell aways involved very large molecules. Now they discovered that the simple gas NO, could play a central role in cell chemistry.

            Robert Furchgott and Louis Ignarro, independently and unraveled the role of nitrogen monoxide in blood pressure regulations. The cells in the lining of arteries detect increased blood pressure and respond by producing nitrogen monoxide. There is no rapidly diffuses through the artery wall to cell in the surrounding muscle tissue, in response the muscle tissue relaxes the blood vessels expand and the blood pressure drops.

            In a related discovery and another prize winner, fried Murad explained how nitroglycerin works to alleviate that intense chest pain of angina attacks which result from reduced blood flow to the heart muscles as a result of partial blockage of arteries by plaque, physicians have prescribed nitroglycerin for angina for more than century knowing only that it work, Murad found that the chemical compound of nitroglycerin breaks down in the body to form nitrogen monoxide which relaxes the arteries allowing greater blood flow to the heart. Alfred noble were alive today would no doubt be stunned this news. Noble who established the prizes bearing his name, made his fortune in the nineteenth century from his invention of dynamite, a mixture of nitroglycerin with clay that named the otherwise hazardous explosive.

           Nowadays a patient my either take nitroglycerin pills for occasional use or apply a chest patch to dispense nitroglycerin continuously to the skin where it's absorbed.

        The latest research on the biological role of nitrogen monoxide now number of in the tense of thousands. For example scientists has found that white blood cells use nitrogen monoxide in a kind of chemical warfare. These cells emits concentrated clouds of NO that surrounding bacterial or tumor cells, killing them by interfering with certain cell process. Researchers have also discovered that nitrogen monoxide plays a role in penile erection. Pharmacologist found that the drug viagra assists in the action of NO in dialating arteries, leading to erection. 

                Viagra is marketed as a aid to erectile dysfunction. The sexual stimulation produces nitrogen monoxide, which in turn aids an enzyme in the production of a substance called cGMP that relaxes arterial muscles, allowing blood to flow to the penis. Viagra enhances the action of NO by inhabiting to enzymes that degrades cGMP.