Essential metals in health and disease

In total, twenty elements appear to be essential for the correct functioning of the human body, half of which are metals and half are non-metals. It is clear that a stronger cooperation between bioinorganic chemists and biophysicists - who have already achieved great success in understanding the structure and role of metalloenzymes in living systems - with biologists, will access new avenues of research in the systems biology of metal ions.

⚡ This is an original paraphrased summary — not copied from the abstract. Full paper available at the source link below.

• 1 Among those metals that are currently considered to be essential for normal biological functioning are four main group elements, sodium (Na), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), and calcium (Ca), and six d-block transition metal elements, manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and molybdenum (Mo).
• 2 Cells have developed various metallo-regulatory mechanisms for maintaining a necessary homeostasis of metal-ions for diverse cellular processes, most importantly in the central nervous system.
• 3 Since redox active transition metals (for example Fe and Cu) may participate in electron transfer reactions, their homeostasis must be carefully controlled.

Understanding this could lead to better treatments, improved diagnostics, or a deeper grasp of how the human body works — benefiting patient care globally.

This summary is based on publicly available metadata and abstract. For the full research paper, visit the original source: