Affiliation:
1. Department of Chemistry, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, USA
Abstract
This contribution describes the path of my nearly forty-year quest to understand the special ligand coordinated to molybdenum and tungsten ions in their respective enzymes. Through this quest, I aimed to discover why nature did not simply use a methyl group on the dithiolene that chelates Mo and W but instead chose a complicated pyranopterin. My journey sought answers through the synthesis of model Mo compounds that allowed systematic investigations of the interactions between molybdenum and pterin and molybdenum and pterin-dithiolene and revealed special features of the pyranopterin dithiolene chelate bound to molybdenum.
Funder
National Institutes of Health
National Science Foundation
Bryn Mawr College
Subject
Chemistry (miscellaneous),Analytical Chemistry,Organic Chemistry,Physical and Theoretical Chemistry,Molecular Medicine,Drug Discovery,Pharmaceutical Science
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