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Enzyme mimics

Halogen and chalcogen team up

Nature Chemistry volume 4, pages 437–438 (2012)Cite this article

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The behaviour of di-selenol enzyme mimics indicates that a halogen bond between selenium and iodine, and a chalcogen interaction between the two selenium atoms, play an important role in the activation of thyroid hormones.

Iodine and selenium are essential trace elements of fundamental importance to human health. The thyroid gland, for example, uses iodine to make thyroid hormones — which are important for the function of every cell in the body owing to their role in regulating cell growth and differentiation, and in increasing the metabolism of proteins, lipids and carbohydrates. In turn, their activity is controlled by a family of seleno-enzymes, the iodothyronine deiodinases (IDs).

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Figure 1: The peri-substituted naphthalene-diselenol 1 efficiently removes iodine (shown in purple) from the inner ring of thyroxine (3,5,3′,5′-tetraiodothyronine, T4), yielding 3,3′,5′-triiodothyronine (rT3) (top).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pierangelo Metrangolo and Giuseppe Resnati are in the Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, and at the Center for Nano Science and Technology of the Italian Institute of Technology, both at the Politecnico di Milano, Milano, 20133, Italy,

    Pierangelo Metrangolo & Giuseppe Resnati

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  1. Pierangelo Metrangolo
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  2. Giuseppe Resnati
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Correspondence to Pierangelo Metrangolo or Giuseppe Resnati.

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Metrangolo, P., Resnati, G. Halogen and chalcogen team up. Nature Chem 4, 437–438 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1355

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