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Science 22 March 1996:
Vol. 271. no. 5256, p. 1670
DOI: 10.1126/science.271.5256.1670
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Research News

James Glanz

Hemoglobin, the familiar oxygen-carrying molecule in red blood cells, may have been leading a double life. A group at the Duke University Medical Center reported in the 21 March issue of Nature that, alongside the familiar respiratory cycle, hemoglobin carries out a second cycle in which it sops up a form of nitric oxide in the lungs and releases it in blood vessels--a shuttle service that helps stabilize blood pressure. Besides giving hemoglobin a surprising new role, the finding could be a boon for efforts to turn cell-free hemoglobin solutions, which now tend to produce dangerous rises in blood pressure, into workable blood substitutes.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Inverse Relation of Dietary Protein Markers With Blood Pressure: Findings for 10 020 Men and Women in the INTERSALT Study.
J. Stamler, P. Elliott, H. Kesteloot, R. Nichols, G. Claeys, A.R. Dyer, and R. Stamler (1996)
Circulation 94, 1629-1634
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