Cyclic GMP XP^® Assay Kit #4360

Cyclic guanosine 3’,5’-monophosphate (cGMP) is a critical and multifunctional second messenger molecule involved in many signal transduction pathways in different cell types of almost all species (1). Intracellular cGMP is generated from GTP by guanylyl cyclase (GC) and degraded through phosphodiesterase (PDE) hydrolysis (1,2). Two distinctive families of GC have been identified: soluble guanylyl cyclases (sGC) that are nitric oxide-responsive and cell membrane-bound, particulate guanylyl cyclases (pGC) that respond to diverse extracellular agonists including peptide hormones, bacterial toxins and free radicals (2,3). Phosphodiesterases form a superfamily of 11 isoforms with different specificity to both cyclic adenosine 3’,5’-monophosphate (cAMP) and cGMP (4). Cyclic GMP regulates cellular physiology by activating cGMP-dependent kinase, modulating cGMP-dependent ion channels or transporters, and altering its own hydrolytic degradation by phosphodiesterase (PDE) (1,4). Because of the diversity of its effectors, cGMP plays an important role in regulating various pathological and physiological processes, such as vascular smooth muscle motility, intestinal fluid and electrolyte homeostasis, and retinal phototransduction (1,5).