Carbon monoxide neurotransmitter

2004/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biologia

Just twenty years ago no one thought that a gas could act as a neurotransmitter, but in the early 1990s they saw that nitrogen monoxide also performed this function, and it has now been revealed that carbon monoxide is also a neurotransmitter.

During the tests carried out during the trial they have verified that hemo oxygenase, an enzyme that leads to the synthesis of carbon monoxide, is regulated by a complex calmodulin of calcium, also responding to millisecond pulses.

The problem is that gases do not accumulate in the vesicles, they occur in the cell as they are needed. Moreover, neurotransmitters are released very quickly. Therefore, rapid production, in milliseconds, is the indispensable condition that a gas must meet to act as a neurotransmitter. That's what researchers have shown.

If it is shown that in humans follows the same mechanism, it is believed that this discovery can help to obtain new treatments for intestinal diseases and to cure early ejaculation.