Active Oxygen in Biochemistry

Description

The field of "Oxygen Activation" has attracted considerable interest recently, not only because it presents challenges in those fields of basic research that aim to understand the fundamental aspects of chemical and biological reactions that involve dioxygen, but also because of its wide range of practical implications in such diverse fields as medicine, synthesis of pharmaceuticals and other organic compounds, materials science, and atmospheric science. This is the second of two volumes that focus on the subject of oxygen activation, the first slanted toward chemistry and the second toward biological chemistry. We planned these volumes to be more general than many monographs of this sort, not as detailed summaries of the authors' own research but rather as general overviews of the field. Our choice of topics was strongly influenced by our syllabus for a course entitled "Oxygen Chemistry," which two of us have twice taught jointly at UCLA. Definition of important issues, horizons, and future prospects was an important goal, and, although totally comprehensive coverage was not possible, we believe that we have chosen a representative selection of research topics current to the field. We have targeted this work to a diverse audience ranging from professionals in fields from physics to medicine to beginning graduate students who are interested in rapidly acquiring the basics of this field. Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Biological Reactions of Dioxygen: An Introduction....Pages 1-36 Oxygen Activation by Flavins and Pterins....Pages 37-83 Reactions of Dioxygen and Its Reduced Forms with Heme Proteins and Model Porphyrin Complexes....Pages 84-187 Dioxygen Reactivity in Copper Proteins and Complexes....Pages 188-231 Oxygen Activation at Nonheme Iron Centers....Pages 232-275 The Mechanism of Lipoxygenases....Pages 276-312 The Biological Significance of Oxygen-Derived Species....Pages 313-335 Metal-Complex-Catalyzed Cleavage of Biopolymers....Pages 336-400 Exploration of Selected Pathways for Metabolic Oxidative Ring Opening of Benzene Based on Estimates of Molecular Energetics....Pages 401-432 The Role of Oxidized Lipids in Cardiovascular Disease....Pages 433-449 Back Matter....Pages 451-463