Oxidations by trinuclear complexes

In this review we have given an overview on the biological and biomimetic oxidations promoted by dinuclear and trinuclear copper centers, with special 

Prom a practical point of view, the application of biomimetic models to processes of synthetic, or industrial interest depends strongly on the transformation of the current stoichiometric reactions into catalytic reactions (e.g., in the phenol oxygenation reactions), the stability of the catalysts, and the introduction of stereoselectivity characteristics in the reactions, by using structurally more sophisticated and possibly chiral ligands. In addition, the biomimetic chemistry of the more complex multinuclear Cu sites, such as the trinuclear Cu sites of blue oxidases, is still in its infancy, and important contributions are expected in the next few years from the study of new and suitable model compounds. 

We thank all our students and the collaborators from other laboratories, whose names are listed in the references to our papers. They gave excellent contributions to the research carried out by our group and their efforts are greatly appreciated. Financial support to our work was given by the Italian MIUR, through PRIN projects, the C.I.R.C.M.S.B. and the University of Pavia. 

Malmstrom, B. G. Leckner, J. Curr. Opinin. Chem. Biol. 1998, 2, 286-292. 

Abramson, J. Svensson-Ek, M. Byrne, B. Iwata, S. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 2001,1544, 1-9. 

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