Endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) is a name for a
substance that
Robert F. Furchgott discovered had the eponymous properties. Today, it is firmly established this substance is
nitric oxide (NO).
produces NO which then diffuses to the vascular smooth muscle tissue, although there seems to be evidence that vasodilation may also be of neuronal origin, rather than endothelial.
NO is produced by the enzyme
nitric oxide synthase and it relaxes
smooth muscle tissue
Smooth muscle is an involuntary non- striated muscle, so-called because it has no sarcomeres and therefore no striations (''bands'' or ''stripes''). It is divided into two subgroups, single-unit and multiunit smooth muscle. Within single-unit ...
by promoting the synthesis of
cGMP.
Furchgott was a co-recipient of the 1998
Nobel Prize in Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according ...
with his colleagues
Louis J. Ignarro and
Ferid Murad
Ferid Murad (born September 14, 1936) is an American physician and pharmacologist, and a co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Early life
Murad was born in Whiting, Indiana. His parents were Henrietta Josephine Bowm ...
. Shortly after his death in May 2009, Furchgott's website at
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University (Downstate) is a public medical school and hospital in Brooklyn, New York. It is the southernmost member of the State University of New York (SUNY) system and the only academic medical center for hea ...
continued to state that his group was "investigating whether the endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) is simply nitric oxide or a mixture of substances".
References
External links
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Nitrogen compounds
Nitrogen cycle
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