Iron compounds biological activities

These, and related, iron nitrosyl compounds have excited considerable interest because of their biological activity.Nitroprusside induces muscle relaxation and is therefore used to control high blood pressure. Roussin s black salt has antibacterial activity under conditions relevant to... 

Cadmium is found naturally deep in the subsurface in zinc, lead, and copper ores, in coal, shales, and other fossil fuels it also is released during volcanic activity. These deposits can serve as sources to ground and surface waters, especially when in contact with soft, acidic waters. Chloride, nitrate, and sulfate salts of cadmium are soluble, and sorption to soils is pH-dependent (increasing with alkalinity). Cadmium found in association with carbonate minerals, precipitated as stable solid compounds, or coprecipitated with hydrous iron oxides is less likely to be mobilized by resuspension of sediments or biological activity. Cadmium absorbed to mineral surfaces (e.g., clay) or organic materials is more easily bioaccumulated or released in a dissolved state when sediments are disturbed, such as during flooding. 

In addition to direct trafficking to target metalloproteins, some metals need to enter specialized biosynthetic pathways for metal cofactor assembly. For example, iron in metaUoenzymes is usually present as part of heme or Fe-S clusters, so it must be routed into the biosynthetic pathways for these cofactors. In a similar vein, molybdenum is not biologically active unless it is first incorporated with a pterin compound to form molybdenum... 

What might be called modern phytotherapy places much emphasis on the use of whole plants or their simple ( crude ) extracts with mild activity. Ironically this makes the assessment of the safety, efficacy and quality of the medicines difficult, firstly because the whole plant is phytochemically more complex and more variable than an isolated purified single compound and secondly because mild biological activity is more difficult to measure in both pharmacological assays and... 

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