Mammalian Heme Peroxidases and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Mammalian heme peroxidase enzymes play a critical role in innate immune responses and disease prevention. The formation of potent chemical oxidants is essential to this protective physiologic activity in immunity. Although highly beneficial in the context of immune defense, it is now well established that peroxidases and their overproduction of oxidants contribute to the initiation and persistence of many chronic inflammatory conditions in the cardiovascular, neurologic, respiratory, renal, and gastrointestinal systems. Peroxidasins, a protein family related to heme peroxidases, play a novel role in tissue biogenesis and matrix assembly, which are also attracting attention in different pathological contexts. Given the diverse roles of mammalian heme peroxidases and the breadth and incidence of pathologies associated with these enzymes, there has been significant interest in modulating peroxidase activity as a therapeutic strategy. This book highlights recent developments in our understanding of the chemistry, biochemistry and biological roles of mammalian peroxidases and their associated oxidants, their involvement in both innate immunity and chronic inflammatory disease in a variety of end organs, and potential therapeutic approaches to modulate and prevent damaging reactions. Key Features Structure and biosynthesis of mammalian peroxidases Reactivity of hypohalous acids with biological substrates Peroxidases in innate immunity Peroxidases in human pathology Modulation of peroxidase-induced biological damage

The last systematic description of heme peroxidases was published in 1999 by Brian Dunford, from the University of Alberta in Canada. The book Heme per- idases covers discussion on three-dimensional structure, reaction mechanism, kinetics, and spectral properties of representative enzymes from bacterial, plant, fungal, and animal origin. Since 1999, vast information on basic but also applied aspects of heme peroxidases has been generated. We believe fusion of these two aspects will bene?t research of those dedicated to development of biocatalytic process. The aim of this book is to present recent advances on basic aspects such as evolution, structure–function relation, and catalytic mechanism, as well as applied aspects, such as bioreactor and protein engineering, in order to provide the tools for rational design of enhanced biocatalysts and biocatalytic processes. The book does not include an exhaustive listing of references but rather a selected collection to enrich discussion and to allow envisioning future directions for research. This book is organized in three parts. In Part I, current knowledge of structure and mechanism of peroxidases is covered. From the molecular phylogeny, going through the in?uence of structural factors over oxidative ability to the molecular mechanism of catalysis, the authors intend to provide an understanding of per- idases at the molecular level. The understanding of the fundamental behavior of peroxidases will allow further adequation, design, and/or optimization of pero- dase-based catalysis to a particular process. In Part II, research on potential applications of peroxidases in several ?elds is presented and discussed.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, as recent investigations demonstrate, has a complex signaling expression, which allows its close interaction with the environment and one of its most renowned properties: the ability to persist for long periods of time under a non-replicative status. Although this skill is well characterized in other bacteria, the intrinsically very slow growth rate of Mycobium tuberculosis, together with a very thick and complex cell wall, makes this pathogen specially adapted to the stress that could be generated by the host against them. In this book, different aspects of these properties are displayed by specialists in the field.

This book will provide an up to date handbook that is unique in its combination of both the general aspects of heme protein structure and the function in a single volume.

This is the fourth set of Handbook of Porphyrin Science.Porphyrins, phthalocyanines and their numerous analogues and derivatives are materials of tremendous importance in chemistry, materials science, physics, biology and medicine. They are the red color in blood (heme) and the green in leaves (chlorophyll); they are also excellent ligands that can coordinate with almost every metal in the Periodic Table. Grounded in natural systems, porphyrins are incredibly versatile and can be modified in many ways; each new modification yields derivatives, demonstrating new chemistry, physics and biology, with a vast array of medicinal and technical applications.As porphyrins are currently employed as platforms for study of theoretical principles and applications in a wide variety of fields, the Handbook of Porphyrin Science represents a timely ongoing series dealing in detail with the synthesis, chemistry, physicochemical and medical properties and applications of polypyrrole macrocycles. Professors Karl Kadish, Kevin Smith and Roger Guilard are internationally recognized experts in the research field of porphyrins, each having his own separate area of expertise in the field. Between them, they have published over 1500 peer-reviewed papers and edited more than three dozen books on diverse topics of porphyrins and phthalocyanines. In assembling the new volumes of this unique handbook, they have selected and attracted the very best scientists in each sub-discipline as contributing authors.This handbook will prove to be a modern authoritative treatise on the subject as it is a collection of up-to-date works by world-renowned experts in the field. Complete with hundreds of figures, tables and structural formulas, and thousands of literature citations, all researchers and graduate students in this field will find the Handbook of Porphyrin Science an essential, major reference source for many years to come.

Excluding the biological polymers proteins, lipids and nucleic acids, modified tetrapyrroles are the biological molecules that have had the greatest impact on the evolution of life over the past 4 billion years. They are involved in a wide variety of fundamental processes that underpin central primary metabolism in all kingdoms of life, from photosynthesis to methanogenesis. Moreover, they bring colour into the world and it is for this reason that these compounds have been appropriately dubbed the ‘pigments of life’. To understand how and why these molecules have been so universally integrated into the life processes one has to appreciate the chemical properties of the tetrapyrrole scaffold and, where appropriate, the chemical characteristics of the centrally chelated metal ion. This book addresses why these molecules are employed in Nature, how they are made and what happens to them after they have finished their usefulness.