Copper: an Essential Metal in Biology
By Richard A. Festa, D. Thiele. Current Biology, 2011
1,042 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Summary Life on Earth has evolved within a complex mixture of organic and inorganic compounds. While organic molecules such as amino acids, carbohydrates and nucleotides form the backbone of proteins and genetic material, these fundamental components of macromolecules are enzymatically synthesized and ultimately degraded. Inorganic elements, such as copper (Cu), iron and zinc, once solubilized from the Earth's crust, are neither created nor destroyed and therefore their homeostatic regulation is under strict control. In the fascinating field of ‘metals in biology', by virtue of direct interactions with amino acid side-chains within polypeptide chains, metals play unique and critical roles in biology, promoting structures and chemistries that would not otherwise be available to proteins alone.
Subfields: Nutrition and Dietetics, Plant Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9c81fbf3c757552c0bf9b9bd90d4bb56f82f7348
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Citations in the corpus
- Cuproptosis: mechanisms and links with cancers (2023, background): “On the one hand, it served as co-factor for many enzymes by donating or receipting electronics [3], on the other hand, the accumulation of copper can lead to a series of cellular metabolic dysfunctions and eventually cell death [18].”
- Copper homeostasis and cuproptosis in health and disease (2022, background): “SYSTEMIC COPPER METABOLISM Cu is an essential element in virtually all living organisms, and numerous studies have shown that Cu serves as a cofactor for a variety of key metabolic enzymes that drive a broad range of physiological processes.(3,4) Thus, the systemic Cu levels must be maintained withi”
- The Arabidopsis NPR1 protein is a receptor for the plant defense hormone salicylic acid. (2012, background): “It is involved in many aspects of physiological activities, serving as a cofactor or a scaffold for enzymes, transcription coactivators and other biologically important proteins (Festa and Thiele, 2011).”