Iron, paramagnetic effects

The work on iron-nickel alloys has described shock-compression measurements of the compressibility of fee 28.5-at. % Ni Fe that show a well defined, pressure-induced, second-order ferromagnetic to paramagnetic transition. From these measurements, a complete description is obtained of the thermodynamic variables that change at the transition. The results provide a more complete description of the thermodynamic effects of the change in the magnetic interactions with pressure than has been previously available. The work demonstrates how shock compression can be used as an explicit, quantitative tool for the study of pressure sensitive magnetic interactions. 

In addition to the standard constraints introduced previously, structural constraints obtainable from the effects of the paramagnetic center(s) on the NMR properties of the nuclei of the protein can be used (24, 103). In iron-sulfur proteins, both nuclear relaxation rates and hyperfine shifts can be employed for this purpose. The paramagnetic enhancement of nuclear relaxation rates [Eqs. (1) and (2)] depends on the sixth power of the nucleus-metal distance (note that this is analogous to the case of NOEs, where there is a dependence on the sixth power of the nucleus-nucleus distance). It is thus possible to estimate such distances from nuclear relaxation rate measurements, which can be converted into upper (and lower) distance limits. When there is more than one metal ion, the individual contributions of all metal ions must be summed up (101, 104-108). If all the metal ions are equivalent (as in reduced HiPIPs), the global paramagnetic contribution to the 7th nuclear relaxation rate is given by... 

The applications of EPR spectroscopy reviewed in the present chapter are based on the sensitivity of the spectrum displayed by iron-sulfur centers to various characteristics, such as the redox state of the center, the distribution of the valences on the iron ions, the nature and the geometry of the ligands, and the presence of nearby paramagnetic species. Although considerable progress has been made during the past few years in the quantitative analysis of these various effects in the case of the conventional iron-sulfur centers described in Section II, the discovery of centers exhibiting unusual EPR properties as... 

The effective hyperfine field at the iron nuclei of a paramagnetic nonconducting sample in an external field //ext may be estimated as //ext... 

The term ferromagnetism reflects the fact that iron shows this effect, but it is by no means restricted to iron or iron compounds. Ferromagnetism is a cooperative phenomenon, i.e. many particles in a solid behave in a coupled manner. Paramagnetic atoms or ions exert influence on each other over extended regions. 

One of the earliest reports of LO inhibition concerned the effects of ortho-dihydroxybenzene (catechol) derivatives on soybean 15-LO [58]. Lipophilic catechols, notably nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA) (19), were more potent (10 /zM) than pyrocatechol itself. The inactivation was, under some conditions, irreversible, and was accompanied by oxidation of the phenolic compound. The orfAo-dihydroxyphenyl moiety was required for the best potency, and potency also correlated with overall lipophilicity of the inhibitor [61]. NDGA and other phenolic compounds have been shown by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy to reduce the active-site iron from Fe(III) to Fe(II) [62] one-electron oxidation of the phenols occurs to yield detectable free radicals [63]. Electron-poor, less easily oxidized catechols form stable complexes with the active-site iron atom [64]. 

In macromolecules, slow exchange effects often quench the relaxivity (Pig. 30) (37) even in the presence of water molecules directly coordinated to iron(III) (91). For instance, in methemoglobin the relaxation rates are attributable to one water molecule coordinated to the paramagnetic center... 

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