Abstract
Nitric oxide (NO) has attracted significant attention as a stellar molecule. Presently, the study of NO has penetrated every field of life science, and NO is widely distributed in various tissues and organs. This review demonstrates the importance of NO in both male and female reproductive processes in numerous ways, such as in neuromodulation, follicular and oocyte maturation, ovulation, corpus luteum degeneration, fertilization, implantation, pregnancy maintenance, labor and menstrual cycle regulation, spermatogenesis, sperm maturation, and reproduction. However, the mechanism of action of some NO is still unknown, and understanding its mechanism may contribute to the clinical treatment of some reproductive diseases.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Reproduction, a section of the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology
Previous studies have found that Nitric oxide (NO)/soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC)/cGMP has a functional significance in the ovary of perch and can regulate maturing follicular oocytes in bass [33]
The results showed that the spontaneous apoptosis of cultured granulosa cells from rats could be directly inhibited by single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) treatment without the addition of donor S-nitrose-N-acetylpenicillamine [29]
Summary
NO was considered a simple inorganic molecule that is toxic to living organisms. NO was named the “star molecule” by American Science magazine in 1992, and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998 was awarded to three American pharmacologists for the discovery of “NO as a signal molecule of the cardiovascular system,” which aroused great attention in the field of life science toward its biological effects and mechanism of action [2]. NO is a cellular messenger and effector molecule It has the characteristics of simple structure, easy diffusion, strong reactivity, lively and unstable properties, and short biological half-life (about 2 s) [3]. NO—an inorganic-free radical with dual functions in organisms—is a special biological signal transmission molecule, which is produced and released by vascular endothelial cells. Through research on the effect of NO on the reproduction of mice, pigs, cattle, and other animals, the understanding of NO has been greatly enhanced
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