NAD(P)H oxidases (NOXs) are a family of enzymes catalyzing the univalent reduction of oxygen to produce the superoxide anion radical, which in turn can be converted in other reactive oxygen species (ROS) and may participate to the formation of reactive nitrogen derivatives, such as peroxynitrite. By virtue of their activity, NOXs may represent a double-edged sword for the organisms homeostasis. On one hand ROS participate in host defence by killing invading microbes and may regulate several important physiological functions, such as cell signalling, regulation of cell growth and differentiation, oxygen sensing, angiogenesis, fertilization and control of vascular tone. On the other hand ROS may play an important role in pathological processes such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, diabetes, cancer, ischemia/reperfusion injury, neurodegenerative diseases. Many roles suggested for NOXs in various tissues and physiopathological situations have been inferred by the in vitro and in vivo effects of several NOX inhibitors. In particular, most studies are based on the use of two compounds, diphenyleneiodonium and apocynin. Aim of this review is to describe the main features of these two compounds, to show that they cannot be used as specific NOX inhibitors and to solicit researchers to find other tools for investigating the role of NOXs.

The behavior of fluoride ions in the human organism is a classic example of double-edged sword. On the one hand the daily supplementation with fluoride is undoubtedly an important preventing factor in protecting teeth from caries, and, as an important mitogenic stimulus for osteoblasts, it may enhance mineral deposition in bone, but on the other hand fluoride, above a threshold concentration, has been demonstrated to be toxic. We present here a brief review of fluoride metabolism and exposure, its use in caries prevention and its effects on bone, followed by an updating about the main hypotheses concerning its mechanism of action and toxicity. The effects of fluoride have been related mainly to its ability to evoke the activation of G proteins and the inhibition of phosphotyrosine phosphatases, leading to an intracellular increase of tyrosine phosphorylation and activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway, and its capacity to cause generation of reactive oxygen species. We present also a unifying hypothesis accounting for these apparently different effects, although the available experimental models and conditions are highly variable in the literature. A lot of experiments still need to be performed to clarify the positive and negative effects of fluoride. Finding the mechanisms accounting for fluoride toxicity is an important point: indeed, the use of fluoride has been proposed in the preparation of new biomaterials to be inserted in the bone, in order to improve their stable and safe integration.

Nitric oxide (NO), a modulator of several physiological processes, is involved in different human sperm functions. We have investigated whether NO may stimulate the motility of human spermatozoa via activation of the soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC)/cGMP pathway. Sperm samples obtained by masturbation from 70 normozoospermic patients were processed by the swim-up technique. The kinetic parameters of the motile sperm-rich fractions were assessed by computer-assisted sperm analysis. After a 30–90 min incubation, the NO donor S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) exerted a significant enhancing effect on progressive motility (77, 78, and 78% vs 66, 65, and 62% of the control at the corresponding time), straight linear velocity (44, 49, and 48 μm/s vs 34, 35, and 35.5 μm/s), curvilinear velocity (81, 83, and 84 μm/s vs 68 μm/s), and average path velocity (52, 57, and 54 μm/s vs 40, 42, and 42 μm/s) at 5 μM but not at lower concentrations, and in parallel increased the synthesis of cGMP. A similar effect was obtained with the NO donor spermine NONOate after 30 and 60 min. The GSNO-induced effects on sperm motility were abolished by 1H-[1,2,4]oxadiazolo-[4,3-a]quinoxalin-1-one (a specific sGC inhibitor) and mimicked by 8-bromo-cGMP (8-Br-cGMP; a cell-permeating cGMP analog); the treatment with Rp-8-Br-cGMPS (an inhibitor of cGMP-dependent protein kinases) prevented both the GSNO- and the 8-Br-cGMP-induced responses. On the contrary, we did not observe any effect of the cGMP/PRKG1 (PKG) pathway modulators on the onset of hyperactivated sperm motility. Our results suggest that NO stimulates human sperm motility via the activation of sGC, the subsequent synthesis of cGMP, and the activation of cGMP-dependent protein kinases.