S-nitrosylation, the covalent attachment of a nitrogen monoxide group to the thiol side chain of cysteine, has emerged as an important mechanism for dynamic, post-translational regulation of most or all main classes of protein. S-nitrosylation thereby conveys a large part of the ubiquitous influence of nitric oxide (NO) on cellular signal transduction, and provides a mechanism for redox-based physiological regulation.

The current perspective of NO biology is formulated predominantly from studies of NO synthesis. The role of S-nitrosothiol (SNO) formation and turnover in governing NO-related bioactivity remains uncertain. We generated mice with a targeted gene deletion of S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR), and show that they exhibit substantial increases in whole-cell S-nitrosylation, tissue damage, and mortality following endotoxic or bacterial challenge. Further, GSNOR(-/-) mice have increased basal levels of SNOs in red blood cells and are hypotensive under anesthesia. Thus, SNOs regulate innate immune and vascular function, and are cleared actively to ameliorate nitrosative stress. Nitrosylation of cysteine thiols is a critical mechanism of NO function in both health and disease.

It is not clear if redox regulation of transcription is the consequence of direct redox-related modifications of transcription factors, or if it occurs at some other redox-sensitive step. One obstacle has been the inability to demonstrate redox-related modifications of transcription factors in vivo. The redox-sensitive transcriptional activator NF-kappaB (p50-p65) is a case in point. Its activity in vitro can be inhibited by S-nitrosylation of a critical thiol in the DNA-interacting p50 subunit, but modulation of NF-kappaB activity by nitric oxide synthase (NOS) has been attributed to other mechanisms. Herein we show that cellular NF-kappaB activity is in fact regulated by S-nitrosylation. We observed that both S-nitrosocysteine and cytokine-activated NOS2 inhibited NF-kappaB in human respiratory cells or murine macrophages. This inhibition was reversed by addition of the denitrosylating agent dithiothreitol to cellular extracts, whereas NO bioactivity did not affect the TNFalpha-induced degradation of IkappaBalpha or the nuclear translocation of p65. Recapitulation of these conditions in vitro resulted in S-nitrosylation of recombinant p50, thereby inhibiting its binding to DNA, and this effect was reversed by dithiothreitol. Further, an increase in S-nitrosylated p50 was detected in cells, and the level was modulated by TNFalpha. Taken together, these data suggest that S-nitrosylation of p50 is a physiological mechanism of NF-kappaB regulation.