Spotlights on immunological effects of reactive nitrogen species: When inflammation says nitric oxide

Table 1 Nitric oxide in immune cells

Cell compartment	Features	Ref.
Innate immunity
Macrophage
M1	High level of NO	[55-59,61]
	Expression of iNOS
	NO-mediated cytotoxicity
M2	Reduced level of NO
	Immune suppressive function
Natural Killer cells
	NO-mediated cytotoxicity	[84,85]
	NO-mediated cell fitness
Mast cells
	NOS expression	[87,89-91,93]
	NO-mediated cell adhesion and function
Myeloid-derived suppressor cell
	iNOS expression	[62,64,94,95]
	Immune modulating function
Dendritic cells
	NOS expression	[72,73,75-77]
	Pathogen clearance
Adaptive immunity
Lymphocyte
T-cell	T-cell activation and function	[64-68,72,73]
	T-cell commitment
B-cell	Reduced level of NO	[69]
	T-independent antibody response

NO: Nitric oxide; NOS: Nitric oxide synthase; iNOS: Inducible NOS.

Table 2 Nitric oxide and its effect in pathologies

Disease	Pathogenesis	Ref.
Autoimmune diseases
	Appearance of neo-epitopes	[29,30,96-98,101,123, 126,130]
	Disruption of physical barriers
	Amelioration of pathological status
Metabolic disease
	Deregulated accumulation of proteins or their abnormal modification	[109,110,115,119,120]
Cancer
	Establishment of an immune suppressive environment	[140-142,147,151,152, 155,157,160]
	Alteration in DNA repair mechanisms