Nitric oxide-based protein modification: formation and site-specificity of protein S-nitrosylation: Could protein S-nitrosylation be the unifying oxidative modification to explain the cellular signaling activity of superoxide and hydrogen peroxide?

Accumulating evidence indicates that reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) function as signaling molecules in physiological settings by acting as second messengers in response to external stimuli such as growth factors, cytokines and hormones. The nature of the ROS involved in cell signaling as well as the underlying mechanisms by which ROS modify protein function to influence cellular processes have been unfolding over the past decade. ROS and RNS influence various cellular processes by altering the function of critical proteins via reversible oxidation of "reactive cysteine" residues. Protein S-nitrosylation is a mechanism of nitric oxide-based signaling, however, while the presence of NO is sufficient and may be a prerequisite for the formation of cysteine-SNO, we reasoned that if protein-SNO formation is a critical cystein modification for redox driven signal transduction, an increase in intracellular ROS such as H2O2 and O2(-), shown to be independently involved in cell signaling, might both promote the formation of protein-SNO. In this respect, the present study shows that an increase in protein-SNO was detected not only upon an increase in the intracellular level of nitric oxide (NO), but also following exposure to low concentration of exogenous hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) or upon inhibition of the Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase that results in increased intracellular O2(-).