Discovery
Nitric oxide dioxygenase was discovered, and first reported in 1998, as an inducible O2-dependent enzymatic activity that protected bacteria against nitric oxide toxicity. The enzyme was identified with the E. coli flavohemoglobin.
More recently, another protein has been identified as a NO dioxygenase - rhodobacter sphaeroides haem protein (SHP), a novel cytochrome with NO dioxygenase activity. Although the biological function of SHP has yet to be identified, SHP has been shown, that with oxygen bound, it can react rapidly with nitric oxide to form nitrate.
Read more about this topic: Nitric Oxide Dioxygenase
Famous quotes containing the word discovery:
“He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn’t love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country ...”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)
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—George Berkeley (1685–1753)