ISBN: 978-83-60043-10-3 - eurobic9

Eurobic9, 2-6 September, 2008, Wrocław, Poland
PL6. From the Geochemistry of Zn/S Minerals to the Inner Workings of
Zn/S Proteins
W. Maret
PMCH, The University of Texas Medical Branch, 700 Harborside Drive, 77555, Galveston, TX, United States,
e-mail: womaret@utmb.edu
In his landmark textbook of chemistry (1827), Jöns Jakob Berzelius drew attention to the fact that the
chemistry of living matter follows quite different laws than that of dead matter. While arguments over vitalism
have long since abated and biochemistry is widely acknowledged as the basis for describing life processes,
bioinorganic chemists continue to discover functional principles that are not evident from pure chemistry. A
particularly exciting area in this regard is the biology of zinc. In zinc proteins, the interaction of zinc(II) with
the sulfur donor of the amino acid cysteine generates a rich coordination and redox chemistry that, in the
context of biological function, gains new significance for catalysis, structure, and regulation. New insights
from the properties that isolated components acquire in complex biological systems inform future research in
"bio-inspired" inorganic chemistry.
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