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VOL. 11, ISSUE 2 (2026)
Determination of bioinorganic chemistry in new field, discipline, words, meanings, reality, development, synthetic, natural product and spectroscopic studies
Authors
Priyanka Singh, Shishir kumar, Vipin Kumar Singh, R B Singh
Abstract
It may seem that bioinorganic chemistry is a new field although, on the
other hand, reports on metals bound to proteins or enzymes date way back into
the 19th century and may probably be found in earlier centuries if we replace
the terms proteins and enzymes with animal or plant tissues. Potassium
ferricyanide was prepared from blood, McMunn described what he called
histohematins now cytochromes in tissues, Hoppe-Seyler made spectroscopic
investigations on hemoglobin, G. Bertrand worked on what he called an oxidase
from plant tissues, which he named laccase; he recognized that it was a metal
protein and even proposed that the metal was a “coenzyme,” with which he may
have been the first to propose the idea of a catalytic metal protein. Spitzer
drew attention to the involvement of iron bound to protein or nucleic acid
nitrogen in tissue respiration, Warburg and Keilin and their collaborators
described polyphenol oxidase, a copper protein, and ferritin was described as
an iron storage protein. In the 1930s Keilin and Hartree found copper in
cytochrome c oxidase. By the middle of that century, zinc and molybdenum were
discovered in enzymes, and non-heme iron was recognized as a necessary
component in mitochondrial preparations that are active in substrate oxidation.
Thus, there is a long trail of discovery of metals in proteins or in other
components of living creatures, metals that were required for either structure
or function, although details of what the functions implied were initially
missing and hard to come by at this point it seems worthwhile to define what is
actually meant by the term’s inorganic and organic in connection with our
present theme or in the context of chemistry as a scientific discipline.
Although the term organic will for many evoke the connotation that it has to do
with life the counterpart “inorganic” then referring to lifeless matter in
chemistry organic has come to mean merely pertaining to the chemistry of carbon
compounds. Inorganic, on the other hand, is generally perceived as referring to
the chemistry of metal compounds, whereas other non-carbon non-metal elements
are not specifically excluded. Because metals of many kinds are found in living
matter, e.g. sodium, potassium, and calcium in considerable quantities, and
because all metals are subjects of inorganic chemistry, there must then, by
definition, always have been an inorganic component of biochemistry. Thus,
according to this reasoning, inorganic biochemistry and bioinorganic chemistry
certainly are no new subjects; rather they may only be new words.
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Pages:74-77
How to cite this article:
Priyanka Singh, Shishir kumar, Vipin Kumar Singh, R B Singh "Determination of bioinorganic chemistry in new field, discipline, words, meanings, reality, development, synthetic, natural product and spectroscopic studies". International Journal of Advanced Research and Development, Vol 11, Issue 2, 2026, Pages 74-77
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