Deep-Dive Guides · Bioinorganic Chemistry
Bioinorganic Chemistry — the complete deep dive
Nature is a coordination chemist.
Free extract — the opening section of the guide, in full.
0. Overview — why biology uses metals
Metal ions bring capabilities organic functional groups lack: variable oxidation states (for redox and catalysis), strong, directional Lewis acidity (to polarise substrates and lower pKa of bound water), flexible coordination geometry (to bind and orient substrates), and unpaired d-electrons (for O₂/radical chemistry and magnetic/spectroscopic signatures). The protein contributes the second half of the design: it sets the coordination environment, excludes water, tunes the redox potential, and enforces geometries (the "entatic state") that poise the metal for its function.
| Job | What the metal provides | Flagship systems |
|---|---|---|
| Transport / storage | reversible small-molecule or ion binding | haemoglobin, myoglobin, ferritin, transferrin |
| Electron transfer | accessible redox couple at tuned potential | cytochromes, Fe–S ferredoxins, blue copper |
| Catalysis | Lewis acid / redox activation of substrate | carbonic anhydrase, SOD, P450, nitrogenase |
| Structure / signalling | cross-links, folding, second messengers | Zn fingers, Ca²⁺ signalling, Na⁺/K⁺ gradients |
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