Coordination compounds oxygen transport

Coordination compounds play many important roles in animals and plants. They are essential in the storage and transport of oxygen, as electron transfer agents, as catalysts, and in photosynthesis. Here we focus on coordination compounds containing iron and magnesium. 

Coordination compounds play important roles in nature. Chlorophyll, which is involved in photosynthesis in plants, is a coordination complex of magnesium. Hemoglobin, the oxygen transporter in the human body, is a coordination complex of iron. Vitamin B12, necessary for the prevention and cure of pernicious anemia, is a coordination complex of cobalt. In all three compounds, the metal ion is in an approximately octahedral environment, its coordination number is 6, and bonded to it are the four nitrogen atoms of a planar porphyrin-hke ring. The basic planar ring structure is closely related to that of the extremely stable blue pigment, Cu(II)phthalo-cyanine. 

Most of the synthetic models we found in our literature survey are concerned with hemocyanine, the oxygen transport protein in arthropods and molluscs, and tyrosinase, which catalyzes the two-electron oxidation of phenolic compounds. Both proteins contain a coupled binuclear copper active site, a Type III copper centre,"which reversibly binds dioxygen as peroxide bridging between the two copper ions" [153]. The Cu-Cu distance is of the order of 300-400 pm, and a tetragonal coordination is achieved with donor nitrogen atoms of imidazole ligands from histidine [142]. 

A quite new type of antibiotic and one of the few naturally-occurring boron compounds is boromycin (86). Hydrolytic cleavage of D-valine with the M(7) hydroxides gave caesium and rubidium salts of this antibiotic, and crystal structure analysis established the formula as (XIIT). The rubidium ion is irregularly coordinated by eight oxygen atoms. Experiments with models showed that the cation site would be the natural place for the—NH3+ end of the D-valine residue, and the whole structure raises the possibility that transport of larger alkali metals is related to the N-ends of peptides and proteins. 

Other workers have added THF or H2O to the carrier gas stream in efforts to affect the requisite vapor pressure increase in Ba(/3-diketonate)2 compounds. " The objective of all these experiments was to coordinatively saturate the barium atom in the vapor phase by incorporation of the lone pair electrons on the oxygen atoms of the neutral ligands into the bonding sphere of the metal. At the temperatures demanded for vapor transport, the equilibrium for dissociation of these ligands is rather unfavorable therefore, any anticipated gain will be minimal. 

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