The Ubiquity of Iron

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• 作者：Perry A. Frey ; George H. Reed
• 刊名：ACS Chemical Biology
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：September 21, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：7
• 期：9
• 页码：1477-1481
• 全文大小：354K
• 年卷期：v.7,no.9(September 21, 2012)
• ISSN：1554-8937

文摘

The importance of iron in living systems can be traced to the many complexes within which it is found, to its chemical mobility in undergoing oxidation鈥搑eduction reactions, and to the abundance of iron in Earth鈥檚 crust. Iron is the most abundant element, by mass, in the Earth, constituting about 80% of the inner and outer cores of Earth. The molten outer core is about 8000 km in diameter, and the solid inner core is about 2400 km in diameter. Iron is the fourth most abundant element in Earth鈥檚 crust. It is the chemically functional component of mononuclear iron complexes, dinuclear iron complexes, [2Fe鈥?S] and [4Fe鈥?S] clusters, [Fe鈥揘i鈥揝] clusters, iron protophorphyrin IX, and many other complexes in protein biochemistry. Metals such as nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese are present in the crust and could in principle function chemically in place of iron, but they are scarce in Earth鈥檚 crust. Iron is plentiful because of its nuclear stability in stellar nuclear fusion reactions. It seems likely that other solid planets, formed by the same processes as Earth, would also foster the evolution of life and that iron would be similarly important to life on those planets as it is on Earth.