Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Hydropersulfides, the new kids in the COPD inflammatory town
  1. Luis Puente-Maestu1,2,3,
  2. Walther Ivan Girón-Matute1,2
  1. 1 Servicio de Neumología del Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón c/ Doctor Ezquerdo, Madrid, Spain
  2. 2 Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón c/ Doctor Ezquerdo, Madrid, Spain
  3. 3 Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Plaza Ramón y Cajal, Madrid, Spain
  1. Correspondence to Professor Luis Puente-Maestu, Servicio de Neumología del Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón c/ Doctor Ezquerdo, 4628007 Madrid, Spain; lpuente{at}separ.es

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is one of several small molecules, formerly known primarily as toxic gases (such as nitric oxide (NO) and carbon monoxide) that over the past 20 years have been shown to be endogenously generated small, signalling molecules.1 2 H2S has accompanied life since its origin. Its toxicological potential, related to the inhibition of cellular respiration, has been known for centuries.3 Indeed, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event has been linked to this toxicity. H2S has been the cause of mining, industrial and sewage accidents, as well as deaths by the inhalation of gases emanating from volcanic and sulfur-rich water wells.

In spite of this felonious record, as it happens with other primeval redox processes, ancient H2S pathways have evolved to play physiological roles in eukaryotic cells.

The rush of discovery for H2S and its derivative compounds started in the late 1980s by reports of potential biological roles of H2S in modulatory and signalling pathways.4 The associated probable health benefits generated a renewed interest in the study of H2S, as reflected in the exponential increase in the number of publications.4

H2S is produced from L-cysteine by an array of enzymes such as cystathionine β-synthase (CBS), cystathionine γ-lyase (CGL), 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase (3MST), cysteine aminotransferase and from …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Contributors LP-M is the main author. WIG-M helped with bibliographic search and proofing of the text.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Linked Articles

  • Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
    Tadahisa Numakura Hisatoshi Sugiura Takaaki Akaike Tomoaki Ida Shigemoto Fujii Akira Koarai Mitsuhiro Yamada Katsuhiro Onodera Yuichiro Hashimoto Rie Tanaka Kei Sato Yutaka Shishikura Taizou Hirano Satoru Yanagisawa Naoya Fujino Tatsuma Okazaki Tsutomu Tamada Yasushi Hoshikawa Yoshinori Okada Masakazu Ichinose