The biochemistry of nickel

Coordination complexes, particularly chelates, play fundamental roles in the biochemistry of both plants and animals. Trace amounts of at least nine transition elements are essential to life—vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, and molybdenum. 

Alex, L. A., Reeve, J. N., Orme-Johnson, W. H. and Walsh, C. T. (1990) Cloning, sequence determination, and expression of the genes encoding the subunits of the nickel-containing 8-hydroxy-5-deazaflavin reducing hydrogenase from Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum delta H. Biochemistry, 29, 7237-44. 

Bagley, K. A., Van Garderen, C. J., Chen, M., Duin, E. C., Albracht, S. P. and Woodruff, W. H. (1994) Infrared studies on the interaction of carbon monoxide with divalent nickel in hydrogenase from Chromatium vinosum. Biochemistry, 33, 9229-36. 

Heavy metals. The most common heavy-metal pollutants are arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel, lead, and mercury. Some metals, such as manganese, iron, copper, and zinc, are essential micronutrients. Each type of heavy metal in its own way affects water ecosystem biochemistry and can accumulate in bottom deposits and in the biomass of living elements. 

Norris, A.L., Nickels, J.D., Sokolov, A.P., Serpersu, E.H. (2013) Protein dynamics are influenced by the order of ligand binding to an antibiotic resistance enzyme. Biochemistry, 53,30-38. 

Kasprzak KS, Diwan BA, Konishi N, Mirsa M, Rice JM (1990) Initiation by nickel acetate and promotion by sodium barbital of renal cortical epithelial tumors in male F344 rats. Carcinogenesis 11 647-652 Kawanishi S, Yamamoto K (1991) Mechanism of site-specific DNA damage induced by methylhydrazines in the presence of copper(II) or manganese(III). Biochemistry 30 3069-3075... 

The new model complexes and other synthetic material inspired by the H2ase and N2ase enzymes hold out the hope of replacing platinum- and palladium-based reduction/H2 oxidation catalysts with those constructed from the base metals iron and nickel [180]. The design of these new catalysts will require the cooperation of scientists from the fields of biology/biochemistry, synthetic orga-nometallic chemistry and theoretical chemistry. 

Davidson, G., Choudhury, S. B., Gu, Z., Bose, K., Roseboom, W., Albracht, S. P. and Maroney, M. J. (2000) Structural examination of the nickel site in chromatium vinosum hydrogenase Redox state oscillations and structural changes accompanying reductive activation and CO binding. Biochemistry, 39, 7468-79. 

Colpas GJ, Brayman TG, Ming L-J, Hausinger RP. 1999. Identification of metalbinding residues in the Klebsiella aerogenes urease nickel metallochaperone, UreE. Biochemistry 38 4078-88. 

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