Ferritins: furnishing proteins with iron

Bradley, Justin, Le Brun, Nick ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9780-4061 and Moore, Geoffrey (2016) Ferritins: furnishing proteins with iron. JBIC Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry, 21 (1). pp. 13-28. ISSN 0949-8257

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Abstract

Ferritins are a superfamily of iron oxidation, storage and mineralization proteins found throughout the animal, plant, and microbial kingdoms. The majority of ferritins consist of 24 subunits that individually fold into 4-α-helix bundles and assemble in a highly symmetric manner to form an approximately spherical protein coat around a central cavity into which an iron-containing mineral can be formed. Channels through the coat at inter-subunit contact points facilitate passage of iron ions to and from the central cavity, and intrasubunit catalytic sites, called ferroxidase centers, drive Fe2+ oxidation and O2 reduction. Though the different members of the superfamily share a common structure, there is often little amino acid sequence identity between them. Even where there is a high degree of sequence identity between two ferritins there can be major differences in how the proteins handle iron. In this review we describe some of the important structural features of ferritins and their mineralized iron cores and examine in detail how three selected ferritins oxidise Fe2+ in order to explore the mechanistic variations that exist amongst ferritins. We suggest that the mechanistic differences reflect differing evolutionary pressures on amino acid sequences, and that these differing pressures are a consequence of different primary functions for different ferritins.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	bacterioferritin,ferritin,ferroxidase,iron oxidation,iron storage,mineralization
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Chemistry (former - to 2024)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Biophysical Chemistry (former - to 2017) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Molecular and Structural Biochemistry Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Chemistry of Life Processes
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	12 Feb 2016 10:00
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2024 23:49
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/57058
DOI:	10.1007/s00775-016-1336-0

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