Trace Elements / Minerals - What are they used for?

[RyanJ]

Hi everyone!

 

I've read on numerous occasions about all these trace minerals and elements required to keep you healthy but my questions is what are they all used for?

 

there are things like Iron that are used to make the haem group in haemoglobyn - the part that carries the Oxygen in red blood cells.

 

What about all those other ones? Does anyone have a list of the trace elements rerquired and what they are used for in the body?

 

Note: This is out of interest and is not part of my school work

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Bluenoise]

Well most of them function as enzyme cofactors like iron does in your example. Cu, Zn, Mg, Ca, Se, and Co are all comonly used as enzyme cofactors plus others.

Some can funtion to stabalize different macromolecular assemblies, like Mg and Ca in cell membranes etc.

They also function to maintain various gradients of ion concentrations that are important to drive certain processes.

As well as some of them most notably Ca work as signal molecules, many important process such as muscle funtion or embryogenesis are controlled by Calcium concentration fronts.

[RyanJ]

Ah... right.

 

So some are used as parts of enzymes (Probably part of the active sites) and also in neurological signals? Right

 

Ok so then do you have a description of why exess of these can be toxic. I'm surprised Selenium is there because its actually quite toxic!

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Yggdrasil]

Most transition metals act as the catalytic centers of many enzymes. Transition metal complexes are great for oxidation-reduction chemistry as transition metals can exist in a variety of oxidation states, allowing them to stabilize and coordinate various intermediates. In addition, it is relatively easy to oxidize and reduce these transition metal complexes, so they can easily oxidize one molecule then reduce another to regenerate the catalyst. Iron ions serve this role in electron transport; the iron-sulfur clusters can oxidize and reduce various substrates in order to pass electrons through the electron transport chain. Furthermore, many transition metals can act as lewis acids, which can facilitate many processes (for example, they can bond to a carbonyl oxygen and draw electron density away from the carbonyl carbon, increasing that carbon's electrophilicity). For example, the zinc ion in carbonic anhydrase hyperpolarizes the H-O bond in water, allowing water to perform a nucleophilic attack on carbon dioxide.

 

Metal ions can also have electrostatic effects, either to stabilize charged groups generated as intermediates or to neutralize areas of high charge density. For example, magnesium ions (Mg²⁺) help stabilize the three negative phosphate groups in ATP, preventing the negative charge from causing a repulsion between ATP and its binding site on an enzyme.

 

The reason many metal ions can be toxic is that even though these ions are integral components of our enzymes, they are needed in only very small (trace) amounts. Therefore, our bodies have limited capabilities for metabolizing these metals and too much of the metal will overload our ability to effectively handle them, causing toxicity.

[RyanJ]

I understand.

 

Thanks you both - your information was very useful to my research

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Bluenoise]

Well yes it also go farther than being catalysts in enzymes. A protein them I'm researching "calmodulin" binds 4 Ca2+ atoms, which do not surve in any catayltic mechanism, but instead work to active this protein by changing its conformation and helping it to bind to other proteins like "Nitric oxide synthase" which it in itself activates.

 

And the signals don't apply to just neurological ones many functions can be signaled by ions either defusing across cell membranes or activating receptors on these membranes.

 

cheers