Nitric Oxide Mediated Vasodilation in Response to Inflammatory Stimuli

Nitric oxide, derived from many cell types, has been implicated in all three components of acute inflammation: vasodilation, edema formation, and leukocyte accumulation. Vasodilation, causing an initial increase in blood flow, seems intuitively a logical response to tissue injury. However, the precise importance of vasodilation to the subsequent events is not known, although it is established that vasodilation potentiates both edema formation and leukocyte accumulation in several examples of the inflammatory response.