Neonatal Pulmonary Hypertension

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Abstract
Endogenous production of nitric oxide is vital for the decrease in pulmonary vascular resistance that normally occurs after birth. The precursor of nitric oxide is arginine, a urea-cycle intermediate. We hypothesized that low concentrations of arginine would correlate with the presence of persistent pulmonary hypertension in newborns and that the supply of this precursor would be affected by a functional polymorphism (the substitution of asparagine for threonine at position 1405 [T1405N]) in carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase, which controls the rate-limiting step of the urea cycle.