Role of endothelium-formed nitric oxide on vascular responses.

1. Endothelial cells of blood vessels generate factors which can modulate underlying smooth muscle tone, inducing vasorelaxation, (endothelium-derived relaxing factor, EDRF, and endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor) and/or vasoconstriction (endothelium-derived contracting factors, EDCFs, including the peptide endothelin). 2. EDRF is nitric oxide (NO) or a RNO compound from which this oxide is released. Its half-life is very short (6-50 sec), and it produces rapid vasodilations and inhibits platelet aggregation. 3. NO is formed from the terminal guanidino of L-arginine, but not of D-arginine. NO effects and NO formation are inhibited by NG-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA), but not by D-NMMA. These inhibitory effects are blocked by L-arginine. 4. Removal of endothelium or pathological situations that can induce endothelial dysfunction (atherosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension or subarachnoid hemorrhage) cause increases on the vascular contractility elicited by agonists (noradrenaline, serotonin, EDCFs, etc.). These findings suggest that EDRF produces a physiological inhibitory modulation of vascular smooth muscle tone and its alteration produces or facilitates the development of diseases such as hypertension or coronary and cerebral vasospasm.