Dr. Jonathan Silberg
Fe/S Proteins: Biogenesis, Evolution, Proteomics, and
Role in Redox Homeostasis
Early life on earth is thought to have made widespread
use of iron and sulfur as enzyme cofactors. As photosynthetic
organisms oxygenated the atmosphere, the ensuing aerobic
organisms faced several new challenges when using iron and
sulfur. Fe/S clusters became less stable in the increasingly
oxidizing environment, and the elemental components of these
clusters became more challenging to mobilize. In many organisms,
the exact details of how biocatalysts mobilize iron and
sulfur for Fe/S cluster assembly and metabolite synthesis
remain unclear, as are the cellular mechanisms for signaling
deviations in redox and Fe/S-cluster homeostasis. A better
understanding of these issues would be of great benefit
to human health, since we know that mismanagement of iron
can lead to the human disease Freidrichs ataxia, and increased
reactive oxygen species production may underlie several
degenerative diseases and aging. Increased knowledge about
the mechanisms of Fe/S-cluster containing biocatalysts would
also aid in expanding the repertoire of practical sulfur-containing
biomaterials that could be synthesized by microbes.
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