The Importance of Iron for Biological Systems

High-valent iron electrochemistry appears to be the least developed because of the scarceness of stable systems compared with those with more common oxidation states. Again, the importance of iron in biology and relevance of heme and nonheme iron center with iron(IV) and maybe (V) is a driving force for studying synthetic analogs. Oxidation chemistry may take advantage of the development... 

As mentioned previously, siderophores must selectively bind iron tightly in order to solubilize the metal ion and prevent hydrolysis, as well as effectively compete with other chelators in the system. The following discussion will address in more detail the effect of siderophore structure on the thermodynamics of iron binding, as well as different methods for measuring and comparing iron-siderophore complex stability. The redox potentials of the ferri-siderophore complexes will also be addressed, as ferri-siderophore reduction may be important in the iron uptake process in biological systems. 

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