Cadmium carbonic anhydrase structure

In these microbes, cadmium sticks in the place of zinc and does zinc s chemistry. Y. Xu et al. Structure and metal exchange in the cadmium carbonic anhydrase of marine diatoms. 2008. Nature 452(7183), p. 56. DOI 10.1038/nature06636. 

The X-ray structure of the unsubstituted tris(pyrazolyl)borato zinc nitrate has been solved showing a unidentate coordination mode for nitrate, in contrast with the t-butyl substituted ligand, which shows anisobidentate nitrate coordination due to the steric effects.232 A partial explanation of the reduced activity of cadmium-substituted carbonic anhydrase is offered by Parkin on the basis of the comparison of nitrate coordination to cadmium and zinc trispyrazo-lylborate moieties. A contributing factor may be the bidentate coordination supported by the cadmium that does not allow the facile access to a unidentate bicarbonate intermediate, which could be highly important to carbonic anhydrase activity.233... 

Substitution of foreign metals for the metals in metalloenzymes (those that contain metals as part of their structures) is an important mode of toxic action by metals. A common mechanism for cadmium toxicity is the substitution of this metal for zinc, a metal that is present in many metalloenzymes. This substitution occurs readily because of the chemical similarities between the two metals (for example, Cd2+ and Zn2+ behave alike in solution). Despite their chemical similarities, however, cadmium does not fulfill the biochemical function of zinc and a toxic effect results. Some enzymes that are affected adversely by the substitution of cadmium for zinc are adenosine triphosphate, alcohol dehydrogenase, and carbonic anhydrase. 

Phytoplankton particulate matter (organic and biomineralized) contains many trace elements. The most abundant are magnesium, cadmium, iron, calcium, barium, copper, nickel, zinc, and aluminum (Table 1), which are important constituents of enzymes, pigments, and structural materials. Carbonic anhydrase requires zinc or cadmium (Price and Morel, 1990 Lane and Morel, 2000), nitrate reductase requires iron (Geider and LaRoche, 1994), and chlorophyll contains magnesium. Additionally, elements such as sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, chlorine, potassium, and calcium may be present as ions... 

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