Genes Influence Memory and Sense of Orientation, Norwegian University of Science and Technology Study

Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have identified a surprising new molecular pathway in skin cells that is involved in wound-healing and sensory communication. The new study, published in Nature Communications on June 28, 2011, shows that in this process skin cells produce nitric oxide, a versatile signaling molecule involved in temperature-sensing and wound-healing. This alternative, oxygen-independent mode of nitric oxide production previously had been thought to occur only outside cells.