Endothelium-derived relaxing factor

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

Endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) was the tentative name of what was later discovered to be nitric oxide (NO). It is released by the vascular endothelium in response to a variety of chemical and physical stimuli. It causes the smooth muscle in the vessel wall to relax, resulting in vasodilation.

EDRF was discovered and characterized by Robert F. Furchgott, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1998 with his co-researchers Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad.

Please refer to nitric oxide for a full treatment of the biological functions of NO.

External link

• R.F. Furchgott's website: The Nature of the Endothelium-Derived Relaxing Factor (http://www.hscbklyn.edu/pharmacology/furch.htm)

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) Endothelium-derived_relaxing_factor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelium-derived_relaxing_factor) version history (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Endothelium-derived_relaxing_factor&action=history) GNU Free Documentation Lizenz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License) CC-by-sa (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/)

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