Syllabus
1. Inorganic elements in living systems, their occurrence and roles. Metal cations and their significance. Toxicity. Essential and toxic metals. Biominerals. History and current investigation of inorganic elements in biological systems.
2. Fundamentals of coordination chemistry with respect to bioinorganic applications. History of coordination chemistry and basic ideas. Central atom. Ligand. Coordination bond and properties of coordination compounds. Crystal field theory.
3. Molecular orbitals and ligand field theory. Stability of complex ions. Symmetry of coordination complexes. Effect of ligands on energy and spin of central atom electrons. Spectrochemical series. The most important biological ligands of metal cations.
4. Tetrapyrroles as macrocyclic ligands. Axial ligands and their effect on electronic structure, conformation and vibrational states of metalloporphyrins. Effect of central atom on metalloporphyrin-nucleic acids interactions.
5. Interactions of metal cations with nucleic acids. Nucleosides and nucleotides as ligands of transient metals. Significance of metal cations for structural properties and conformational stability of nucleic acids. Role of transient metals in B-Z conformational transition of nucleic acids.
6. Interactions of metal cations with proteins. Aminoacids as ligands of transient metals. Transient metals as components of active centers of enzymes. Cations and stability of proteins.
7. Metabolism of iron. Redox states of iron, solubility and biological role. Transport and storage: transferrin, ferritin, hemosiderin. Heme enzymes: cytochromes, peroxidases. Nonheme iron proteins: FeS-proteins, ribonucleotide reductase, methan monooxygenase.
8. Copper proteins as alternative to biological iron. Blue copper centers, oxidoreductases, cytochrome-c-oxidase, superoxide dismutase.
9. Zinc and its structural and gene-regulatory functions. Zinc enzymes, catalysis of hydrolyse and condensation. Carboanhydrases, alcoholdehydrogenase and related enzymes. Zinc fingers and other zinc regulators. Methalothionein. Zinc-containing DNA-repairing systems.
10. Nickel enzymes. Cancerogenity of nickel, Urease, hydrogenase and related enzymes.
11. Chemotherapy by compounds containing nonessential metals. History. Platinum anticancer drugs. Gold in antiarthritic agents. Bismuth in therapy of gastro-intestinal diseases. Psycho-modulating effects of lithium.
Annotation
Inorganic elements in living systems, their occurrence and function. Essentiality and toxicity of metals.
Complex ions of transient metals. Interactions of the metals with porphyrins, nucleic acids and proteins.
Metabolism of the most important metals (Fe, Cu, Zn, Ni) and the most important enzymes containing trace elements. Chemotherapeutics containing some non-essential metals.