Biomimetic Chemistry: Biology as an Inspiration

Breslow, Ronald

doi:10.1074/jbc.x800011200

Cited by 100 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The flow of information from biology to chemistry is much larger in the second case. A repeatedly reported symbolic example of a bioinspired object is a jumbo jet which flies as a bird but is not just a scaled-up bird [12]. In the following we present an interesting example, more modest than the one that led from a bird to a plane, of a bioinspired approach developed in our laboratory which resulted in a remarkable catalytic material for water to hydrogen interconversion with potential technological applications in renewable energy systems.…”

Section: Bioinspired Catalysismentioning

confidence: 97%

Bioinspired catalysis at the crossroads between biology and chemistry: A remarkable example of an electrocatalytic material mimicking hydrogenases

Fontecave

Artero

2010

Comptes Rendus. Chimie

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Section: Bioinspired Catalysismentioning

confidence: 97%

Bioinspired catalysis at the crossroads between biology and chemistry: A remarkable example of an electrocatalytic material mimicking hydrogenases

Fontecave

Artero

2010

Comptes Rendus. Chimie

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“…5-Aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide (AICA) and 5-formamidoimidazole-4-carboxamide (fAICA), the imidazole intermediates for hypoxanthine in the cell, were also detected in the condensation mixture [32,74]. Thus, the H 2 NCHO/montmorillonite syntheses appeared to be the first documented example of a chemiomimetic system [76,77].…”

Section: Syntheses Of Nucleic Bases From Formamidementioning

confidence: 99%

Formamide and the origin of life

Saladino

Crestini

Pino

et al. 2012

Physics of Life Reviews

254

234

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The complexity of life boils down to the definition: "self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution" (Joyce, 1994) [1]. The term "self-sustained" implies a set of chemical reactions capable of harnessing energy from the environment, using it to carry out programmed anabolic and catabolic functions. We briefly present our opinion on the general validity of this definition.Running anabolic and catabolic functions entails complex chemical information whose stability, reproducibility and evolution constitute the core of what is dubbed genetics.Life as-we-know-it is made of the intimate interaction of metabolism and genetics, both built around the chemistry of the most common elements of the Universe (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon). Other elements like phosphorus and sulphur play important but ancillary and potentially replaceable roles.The reproducible interaction of metabolic and genetic cycles results in the hypercycles of organization and de-organization of chemical information that we consider living entities. In order to approach the problem of the origin of life it is therefore reasonable to start from the assumption that both metabolism and genetics had a common origin, shared a common chemical frame, were embedded in physical-chemical conditions favourable for the onset of both.The most abundant three-atoms organic compound in interstellar environment is hydrogen cyanide HCN, the most abundant three-atoms inorganic compound is water H 2 O. The combination of the two results in the formation of formamide H 2 NCOH. We have explored the chemistry of formamide in conditions compatible with the synthesis and the stability of compounds of potential pre-genetic and pre-metabolic interest. We discuss evidence showing (i) that all the compounds necessary for the build-up of nucleic acids are easily obtained abiotically, (ii) that essentially all the steps leading to the spontaneous generation of RNA are abiotically possible, (iii) that the key compounds of extant metabolic cycles are obtained in the same chemical frame, often in the same test tube.How close are these observations to a plausible scenario for the origin of life?

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“…In many cases, these Mn-substituted derivatives were investigated in order to provide insight on the role of heme iron in the reactions of the native proteins [12]. Manganesesubstituted derivatives of heme proteins that have been reported to date include those of Hb [13,14], myoglobin (Mb) [15][16][17], cytochrome P450 [18], sGC [19], cytochrome c [20], nitric oxide synthase [21], horseradish peroxidase [14,16,22], cytochrome b 5 [23], CcP [16,24,25], and PGHS-1 [26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crystal structures of manganese- and cobalt-substituted myoglobin in complex with NO and nitrite reveal unusual ligand conformations

Zahran

Chooback

Copeland

et al. 2008

Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry

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Nitrite is now recognized as a storage pool of bioactive nitric oxide (NO). Hemoglobin (Hb) and myoglobin (Mb) convert, under certain conditions, nitrite to NO. This newly discovered nitrite reductase activity of Hb and Mb provides an attractive alternative to mammalian NO synthesis from the NO synthase pathway that requires dioxygen. We recently reported the X-ray crystal structure of the nitrite adduct of ferric horse heart Mb, and showed that the nitrite ligand binds in an unprecedented O-binding (nitrito) mode to the d(5) ferric center in Mb(III)(ONO) [D.M. Copeland, A. Soares, A.H. West, G.B. Richter-Addo, J. Inorg. Biochem. 100 (2006) 1413-1425]. We also showed that the distal pocket in Mb allows for different conformations of the NO ligand (120 degrees and 144 degrees ) in Mb(II)NO depending on the mode of preparation of the compound. In this article, we report the crystal structures of the nitrite and NO adducts of manganese-substituted hh Mb (a d(4) system) and of the nitrite adduct of cobalt-substituted hh Mb (a d(6) system). We show that the distal His64 residue directs the nitrite ligand towards the rare nitrito O-binding mode in Mn(III)Mb and Co(III)Mb. We also report that the distal pocket residues allow a stabilization of an unprecendented bent MnNO moiety in Mn(II)MbNO. These crystal structural data, when combined with the data for the aquo, methanol, and azide MnMb derivatives, provide information on the role of distal pocket residues in the observed binding modes of nitrite and NO ligands to wild-type and metal-substituted Mb.

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Biomimetic Chemistry: Biology as an Inspiration

Cited by 100 publications

References 25 publications

Bioinspired catalysis at the crossroads between biology and chemistry: A remarkable example of an electrocatalytic material mimicking hydrogenases

Bioinspired catalysis at the crossroads between biology and chemistry: A remarkable example of an electrocatalytic material mimicking hydrogenases

Formamide and the origin of life

Crystal structures of manganese- and cobalt-substituted myoglobin in complex with NO and nitrite reveal unusual ligand conformations

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