Cardiovascular and gastrointestinal function of IRAG
Background Signalling by NO/cGMP is very important for regulation of vascular tone and gastrointestinal motility. One important signalling pathway of cGMP-dependent protein kinase type I (cGKI) is mediated by IRAG (IP3 Receptor Associated cGKI substrate) which is highly expressed in smooth muscle of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal tissue. In order to elucidate the physiological role of IRAG we generated IRAG knockout mice by targeted deletion of exon 3. These mice show an enlarged gastrointestinal tract including pylorus stenosis.