Title: Methods to Study Metals in Biological Systems
Abstract: The study of metals in biological systems requires some of them highly specific, some limited to certain aspects of the metal ion in question, and some of more general applicability techniques. This chapter describes the various techniques to study metals in biological systems such as, magnetic susceptibility, Mössbauer spectroscopy, electron paramagnetic resonance, electron- nuclear double resonance, nuclear magnetic resonance, vibrational spectroscopy, electron absorption spectroscopy, magnetic circular dichorism, resonance raman spectroscopy, extended X-ray absorption fine structure and X-ray diffraction. Mössbauer spectroscopy in biological systems is restricted to iron-containing systems because the only element available with a Mössbauer nucleus is 57Fe. The EPR spectroscopic techniques will be of application only if the metal centre has an unpaired electron. In contrast, provided that crystals can be obtained, X-ray diffraction allows the determination of the 3-D structure of metalloproteins and their metal centers. Spectroscopic techniques have the advantage over protein crystallography in that not only are crystals not required, but also they can allow time-resolved measurements to be made which can detect short-lived intermediates. However, to obtain structural information, the observed spectroscopic data must be fitted to molecular structures. This can be done with reference structures, which model the spectroscopic properties of the metalloprotein site. These could be synthetic low-molecular weight complexes of known molecular structure, or known high-resolution metalloprotein structures obtained by X-ray crystallograhy or high-field NMR.
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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