Endothelium, Nitric Oxide, and Atherosclerosis: From Basic Mechanisms to Clinical Implications

Abstract

The discovery of nitric oxide as an essential effector of many biological phenomena surely stands out as one of the most important achievements of 20th century biomedical investigation. As a cardiovascular clinician and investigator, the earliest studies of endothelium-derived relaxing factor and nitric oxide in vascular biology are especially gratifying in that they established the scientific infrastructure on which the much broader scope of nitric oxide biology was ultimately based. Understanding the many roles of nitric oxide in cardiovascular biology and pathobiology, in particular, has shed light on basic mechanisms of cardiovascular function, on fundamental mechanisms of cardiovascular disease, and on conventional and novel approaches to cardiovascular therapeutics. With this background, I was not surprised to learn that 53 books have been published on nitric oxide biology and chemistry in the last 10 years, and 10 of these have …