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. 2020 Jun 18;21(12):4349. doi: 10.3390/ijms21124349

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© 2020 by the authors.

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Gasotransmitters: biosynthesis and function. Nitric oxide (NO), carbon monoxide (CO), and hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) were identified as gasotransmitters in 1980, 1991 and 1996, respectively. NO is synthesized by a family of NO synthases (eNOS, nNOS or iNOS) via converting l-arginine to l-citrulline. CO is synthesized by heme oxygenases (HO-1 or HO-2) by oxidizing heme to produce CO along with biliverdin and iron/ferritin. H₂S is mainly synthesized by cystathionine β-synthase (CBS) or cystathionine-γ-lyase (CSE) by converting l-Cysteine to l-Serine or Pyruvate and NH₄⁺; H₂S can also be produced by condensation of homocysteine and serine into cystathionine by CBS and by CSE to produce H₂S. In addition, cysteine aminotransferase (CAT) and 3-mercaptopyrivate sulfurtransferase (3MST) can also catalyze the biosynthesis of H₂S from l-Cysteine via the intermediate product as β-Mercapto-pyruvate. The gasotransmitters NO, CO and H₂S act to regulate cell survival, anti-inflammation, cardioprotective angiogenesis and vasodilation.