VASP and diabetes mellitus: Since hyperglycaemia is the main biochemical feature of diabetes mellitus, we aimed to clarify in this study whether high glucose impairs in VSMC the ability of NO to increase the synthesis of cGMP and to activate the downstream cascade of events leading to VASP phosphorylation; furthermore, we aimed to clarify the mechanisms involved in this putative impairment, with a peculiar emphasis for the oxidative stress, which is deeply involved in the pathogenesis of diabetes vascular complications and mediates the vascular damage induced by hyperglycaemia [24, 25].