NOS3 and endothelial dysfunction: Additionally, a preclinical study demonstrated that inulin consumption ameliorated endothelial dysfunction in a hypertensive animal model by enhancing the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) pathway, improving endothelium-dependent relaxation, and increasing the phosphorylated endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) to total eNOS ratio at Ser-1177 (eNOS phosphorylation site) and NO-producing bacteria, including E. coli and Bifidobacteriaceae (Catry et al., 2018).