BIOINORGANIC CHEMISTRY PART B
To address successfully the topics of the course, students must have solid knowledge of coordination chemistry (geometry, electronic properties, fundamental reactions) and of organic chemistry and chemical physics. It is mandatory to have attended Part A of this course.
The purpose of the course is to provide basic knowledge on the nature and properties of the more common metal-enzymes, with a focus on function and structure of the active site and on the role of these molecules in biological structures. Students completing the course will have become aware of the role of metals (mainly transition) in the organization of living systems.
1)Metal Chaperones. The case of copper.
2)Nickel. Urease. Hydrogenase and CO oxidoreductase. Ni-SOD
3)Manganese. Concanavalin. Peroxidase. Mn-SOD. Catalase.
4)Molybdenum. Mo containing oxotransferase: the cofactor MoCo. The role of molybdenum in the nitrogen cycle: nitrogenase.
5)Cobalt. Cobalamines, Vitamin B12. Methionine synthase. Methyl-malonyl mutase.
6)Photosynthesis. The. Photosystem I and II. Complex cytochrome b6/f. The role of Mn in the photosynthetic process: the oxygen evolving complex.
Slides presented in class will be available to the students on the university e-learning platform in the days before the holding of the lectures. The Protein Data Bank (PDB, free access) may also provide useful references to the original literature.