Zinc Biochemistry: From a Single Zinc Enzyme to a Key Element of Life
TL;DR: It is fair to conclude that the impact of zinc for health and disease will be at least as far-reaching as that of iron.
About: This article is published in Advances in Nutrition.The article was published on 2013-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 514 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Zinc finger & Zinc.
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TL;DR: A full appreciation of folate's history as a public health issue, its biology, and an overview of available biomarkers and their interpretation across a range of clinical and population-based uses are provided.
Abstract: The Biomarkers of Nutrition for Development (BOND) project is designed to provide evidence-based advice to anyone with an interest in the role of nutrition in health. Specifically, the BOND program provides state-of-the-art information and service with regard to selection, use, and interpretation of biomarkers of nutrient exposure, status, function, and effect. To accomplish this objective, expert panels are recruited to evaluate the literature and to draft comprehensive reports on the current state of the art with regard to specific nutrient biology and available biomarkers for assessing nutrients in body tissues at the individual and population level. Phase I of the BOND project includes the evaluation of biomarkers for 6 nutrients: iodine, iron, zinc, folate, vitamin A, and vitamin B-12. This review represents the second in the series of reviews and covers all relevant aspects of folate biology and biomarkers. The article is organized to provide the reader with a full appreciation of folate's history as a public health issue, its biology, and an overview of available biomarkers (serum folate, RBC folate, and plasma homocysteine concentrations) and their interpretation across a range of clinical and population-based uses. The article also includes a list of priority research needs for advancing the area of folate biomarkers related to nutritional health status and development.
813 citations
TL;DR: This review summarizes current progress in the understanding of each ZnT and ZIP transporter from the perspective of zinc physiology and pathogenesis, discussing challenging issues in their structure and zinc transport mechanisms.
Abstract: Zinc is involved in a variety of biological processes, as a structural, catalytic, and intracellular and intercellular signaling component. Thus zinc homeostasis is tightly controlled at the whole ...
698 citations
Cites background from "Zinc Biochemistry: From a Single Zi..."
...Intermolecular zinc-binding sites consisting of an interface between two or more proteins are generally difficult to identify (7, 265), although a number of important examples have been found (165, 361)....
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...Buffering and muffling are important in situations of excess zinc conditions and also play a role in zinc ion fluctuations (265)....
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...Several lines of evidence indicate that the zinc concentration fluctuates in response to various stimuli, as illustrated by the “zinc wave” (see above) (451) and “zinc spark” (see below) (211) phenomena, and temporal fluctuations of zinc play crucial functions in zinc signaling (265, 305) (see sect....
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TL;DR: The human body needs about 20 essential elements in order to function properly and among them, for certain, 10 are metal elements, though for every metal we do need, there is another one in our body we could do without it as discussed by the authors.
429 citations
TL;DR: This review aims to provide updated information about the mechanisms involved in the protective role of zinc against oxidative stress, and provides strong evidence for the role in the protection against oxidativestress in several diseases.
Abstract: Oxidative stress is a metabolic dysfunction that favors the oxidation of biomolecules, contributing to the oxidative damage of cells and tissues. This consequently contributes to the development of several chronic diseases. In particular, zinc is one of the most relevant minerals to human health, because of its antioxidant properties. This review aims to provide updated information about the mechanisms involved in the protective role of zinc against oxidative stress. Zinc acts as a co-factor for important enzymes involved in the proper functioning of the antioxidant defense system. In addition, zinc protects cells against oxidative damage, acts in the stabilization of membranes and inhibits the enzyme nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase (NADPH-Oxidase). Zinc also induces the synthesis of metallothioneins, which are proteins effective in reducing hydroxyl radicals and sequestering reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced in stressful situations, such as in type 2 diabetes, obesity and cancer. Literature provides strong evidence for the role of zinc in the protection against oxidative stress in several diseases.
305 citations
Cites background from "Zinc Biochemistry: From a Single Zi..."
...These adverse effects include decreased expression of copper-dependent enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase and ceruloplasmin, which are important in antioxidant defense [44,45]....
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TL;DR: A model has emerged in which the host utilizes Cu and/or Zn intoxication to reduce the intracellular survival of pathogens and their direct bactericidal function.
286 citations
References
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TL;DR: The definition and use of family-specific, manually curated gathering thresholds are explained and some of the features of domains of unknown function (also known as DUFs) are discussed, which constitute a rapidly growing class of families within Pfam.
Abstract: Pfam is a widely used database of protein families and domains. This article describes a set of major updates that we have implemented in the latest release (version 24.0). The most important change is that we now use HMMER3, the latest version of the popular profile hidden Markov model package. This software is approximately 100 times faster than HMMER2 and is more sensitive due to the routine use of the forward algorithm. The move to HMMER3 has necessitated numerous changes to Pfam that are described in detail. Pfam release 24.0 contains 11,912 families, of which a large number have been significantly updated during the past two years. Pfam is available via servers in the UK (http://pfam.sanger.ac.uk/), the USA (http://pfam.janelia.org/) and Sweden (http://pfam.sbc.su.se/).
14,075 citations
TL;DR: Majors topics addressed in this review on zinc physiology are chemistry and biochemistry; interface of biochemistry and physiology of zinc; physiology and cell and molecular biology; and pathology.
Abstract: Majors topics addressed in this review on zinc physiology are ; 1) chemistry and biochemistry; 2) interface of biochemistry and physiology of zinc; 3) physiology and cell and molecular biology; 4) pathology
2,850 citations
"Zinc Biochemistry: From a Single Zi..." refers background in this paper
...Extensive reviews on this second phase of discovery exist (33,34)....
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TL;DR: Analysis of the amino acid sequence reveals nine tandem similar units, each consisting of approximately 30 residues and containing two invariant pairs of cysteines and histidines, the most common ligands for zinc in the 7S particle of Xenopus laevis oocytes, which suggests that the protein contains repetitive zinc‐binding domains.
Abstract: The 7S particle of Xenopus laevis oocytes contains 5S RNA and a 40-K protein which is required for 5S RNA transcription in vitro. Proteolytic digestion of the protein in the particle yields periodic intermediates spaced at 3-K intervals and a limit digest containing 3-K fragments. The native particle is shown to contain 7-11 zinc atoms. These data suggest that the protein contains repetitive zinc-binding domains. Analysis of the amino acid sequence reveals nine tandem similar units, each consisting of approximately 30 residues and containing two invariant pairs of cysteines and histidines, the most common ligands for zinc. The linear arrangement of these repeated, independently folding domains, each centred on a zinc ion, comprises the major part of the protein. Such a structure explains how this small protein can bind to the long internal control region of the 5S RNA gene, and stay bound during the passage of an RNA polymerase molecule.
2,194 citations
"Zinc Biochemistry: From a Single Zi..." refers background in this paper
...A huge impact on the development of the field was the observation that Xenopus laevis transcription factor IIIA contains 9 repetitive sequences of C (cysteine) and H (histidine) residues that are involved in the binding of 9 zinc ions (12)....
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1,672 citations
"Zinc Biochemistry: From a Single Zi..." refers background in this paper
...E (E, glutamate) that aligns with that of the catalytic zinc in the bacterial proteinase thermolysin (17)....
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TL;DR: The use of zinc in medicinal skin cream was mentioned in Egyptian papyri from 2000 BC, and the number of biological functions, health implications and pharmacological targets that are emerging for zinc indicate that it might turn out to be 'the calcium of the twenty-first century'.
Abstract: The use of zinc in medicinal skin cream was mentioned in Egyptian papyri from 2000 BC (for example, the Smith Papyrus), and zinc has apparently been used fairly steadily throughout Roman and modern times (for example, as the American lotion named for its zinc ore, 'Calamine'). It is, therefore, somewhat ironic that zinc is a relatively late addition to the pantheon of signal ions in biology and medicine. However, the number of biological functions, health implications and pharmacological targets that are emerging for zinc indicate that it might turn out to be 'the calcium of the twenty-first century'.
1,658 citations
"Zinc Biochemistry: From a Single Zi..." refers background in this paper
...The prime example is the release of zinc(II) ions from synaptic vesicles in a subset of glutamatergic neurons (77)....
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