Metallobiology of Iron

Modulating Iron Reactivity by Targeting to the Mitochondrion

Iron is a key catalytic element in organisms, playing key roles in respiration, enzyme conversions and many other functions. A hallmark of biological iron metabolism is the “double-edged sword” property, referring to how iron is very useful when properly managed, but harmful in excess, when weakly bound or mislocated. We are creating peptide-based tools to target iron “sponges” and iron sensors to mitochondria and other organelles in order to investigate iron metabolism.

(left) sequestered iron(3+) in a peptide with fluorescent tag; (center) characterization of mitochondrion-targeting fluorescent peptide; (right) center structure colocation in mitochondrion shown by confocal fluorescent miscroscopy, ovarian cancer cell line.

Opportunities exist for students to be involved with a host of subdisciplines of Chemistry in this highly interdisciplinary project. These areas include ligand design and synthesis, peptide design and synthesis, peptide interactions with membranes and sophisticated analytical chemistry methods. This project is funded by the NIH.

*We thank our collaborators, Prof. Suzy V. Torti of the University of Connecticut Health Center and Prof. Harish Vashisth of UNH Chemical Engineering, for important contributions.

Representative Publication (in progress):

Bifunctional Iron Chelators and Their Fluorophore Conjugates for Study of Cellular Iron Metabolism by Leonid Povolotskiy1 , Lia Tesfay2 , Ann Cowan2 , Ryan Fitzgerald1 , Suzy V. Torti2 , and Roy Planalp1 1Department of Chemistry, University of New Hampshire, Durham NH 03824, USA 2Department of Molecular Biology and Biophysics, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT, 06030, USA. 23rd Frühjarssymposium, held 29th Mar-1st April 2021, hosted remotely from Leipzig, Germany and sponsored by the GDCh-JCF.