Sodium nitrite prevents impaired postnatal alveolar development

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Deficient nitric oxide (NO) signaling plays a critical role in bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD); however, human trials of inhaled NO (iNO) to prevent BPD have shown little to no benefit. We compared preventive effects of sodium nitrite (NaNO 2 ) to iNO in a novel rat model of experimental BPD. NaNO 2 prevented impaired postnatal alveolarization, whereas iNO had minimal effect. NaNO 2 inhibited nitration and enhanced S-nitrosylation of several proteins in the lung, potentially explaining its superiority to iNO.