biochemical significance of these metals. Fe, Cl,Co,Zn,Na,I,Mg.?

Answer 1

IRON (Fe):

Iron is essential to all known organisms. It is mostly stably incorporated in the inside of metalloproteins, because in exposed or in free form it causes production of free radicals that are generally toxic to cells. To say that iron is free doesn't mean that it is free floating in the bodily fluids. Iron binds avidly to virtually all biomolecules so it will adhere nonspecifically to cell membranes, nucleic acids, proteins etc.

Many animals incorporate iron into the heme complex, an essential component of cytochromes, which are proteins involved in redox reactions (including but not limited to cellular respiration), and of oxygen carrying proteins hemoglobin and myoglobin. Inorganic iron involved in redox reactions is also found in the iron-sulfur clusters of many enzymes, such as nitrogenase (involved in the synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen) and hydrogenase. A class of non-heme iron proteins is responsible for a wide range of functions within several life forms, such as enzymes methane monooxygenase (oxidizes methane to methanol), ribonucleotide reductase (reduces ribose to deoxyribose; DNA biosynthesis), hemerythrins (oxygen transport and fixation in marine invertebrates) and purple acid phosphatase (hydrolysis of phosphate esters). When the body is fighting a bacterial infection, the body sequesters iron inside of cells (mostly stored in the storage molecule ferritin) so that it cannot be used by bacteria.

Iron distribution is heavily regulated in mammals, as a defense against bacterial infection and also because of the potential biological toxicity of iron. The iron absorbed from the duodenum binds to transferrin, and is carried by blood to different cells. There it gets by an as yet unknown mechanism incorporated into target proteins. [2]. A lengthier article on the system of human iron regulation can be found in the article on human iron metabolism.

CHLORIDE ION (Cl -)

Chloride ions have important physiological roles. For instance, in the central nervous system, the inhibitory action of glycine and some of the action of GABA relies on the entry of Cl− into specific neurons. Also, the chloride-bicarbonate exchanger biological transport protein relies on the chloride ion to increase the blood's capacity of carbon dioxide, in the form of the bicarbonate ion.



COBALT (Co):

Cobalt in small amounts is essential to many living organisms, including humans. Having 0.13 to 0.30 mg/kg of cobalt in soils markedly improves the health of grazing animals. Cobalt is a central component of the vitamin cobalamin, or vitamin B-12.

ZINC (Zn):

Zinc is an essential element, necessary for sustaining all life. It is estimated that 3000 of the hundreds of thousands of proteins in the human body contain zinc prosthetic groups. In addition, there are over a dozen types of cells in the human body that secrete zinc ions, and the roles of these secreted zinc signals in medicine and health are now being actively studied. Intriguingly, brain cells in the mammalian forebrain are one type of cell that secretes zinc, along with its other neuronal messenger substances. Cells in the salivary gland, prostate, immune system and intestine are other types that secrete zinc.

Zinc is an activator of certain enzymes, such as carbonic anhydrase. Carbonic anhydrase is important in the transport of carbon dioxide in vertebrate blood. It is also required in plants for leaf formation, the synthesis of indole acetic acid (auxin) and anaerobic respiration (alcoholic fermentation).

SODIUM (Na):

Sodium ions play a diverse and important role in many physiological processes. Excitable animal cells, for example, rely on the entry of Na+ to cause a depolarization. An example of this is signal transduction in the human central nervous system, which depends on sodium ion motion in all nerves.

Some potent neurotoxins, such as batrachotoxin, increase the sodium ion permeability of the cell membranes in nerves and muscles, causing a massive and irreversible depolarization of the membranes, with potentially fatal consequences. However, drugs with smaller effects on sodium ion motion in nerves may have diverse pharmacological effects which range from anti-depressant to anti-seizure actions.


IODINE (I):

Iodine has a single known role in biology: it is an essential trace element since the thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) contain iodine. These are made from addition condensation products of the amino acid tyrosine, and are stored prior to release in a protein-like molecule called thryroglobulin. T4 and T3 contain four and three atoms of iodine per molecule, respectively. The thyroid gland actively absorbs iodide ion from the blood to make and release these hormones into the blood, actions which are regulated by a second hormone TSH from the pituitary. Thyroid hormones are phylogenetically very old molecules which are sythesized by most multicellular organisms, and which even have some effect on unicellular organisms.

Thyroid hormones play a very basic role in biology, acting on gene transcription to regulate the basal metabolic rate. The total deficiency of thyroid hormones can reduce basal metabolic rate up to 50%, while in excessive production of thyroid hormones the basal metabolic rate can be increased by 100%. T4 acts largely as a precursor to T3, which is (with some minor exceptions) the biologically active hormone

MAGNESIUM (Mg):

Magnesium ion is essential to the basic nucleic acid chemistry of life, and thus is essential to all cells of all known living organisms. Plants have an additional use for magnesium in that chlorophylls are magnesium-centered porphyrins. Many enzymes require the presence of magnesium ions for their catalytic action, especially enzymes utilizing ATP, or those which use other nucleotides to synthesize DNA and RNA.

Green vegetables such as spinach provide magnesium because the center of the chlorophyll molecule contains magnesium. Nuts (especially almonds), seeds, and some whole grains are also good sources of magnesium.

All this information was extracted from www.wikipedia.org

Hope it helps you.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Blake (who wrote 100 years or more before Robert Frost) called this poem "Auguries of Innocence," I believe. To me, the poem says that if we can recover the innocence of our original selves -- if the cynical, discouraged or guilt-haunted adult can "become like a little child" again -- in Jesus's words -- the world will seem infinite and timeless to us. Recover your original innocence, Blake is saying, and looking at a wildflower will give you a taste of heaven. There's a Bob Dylan song from the 1960s, probably written under the influence of drugs, that has basically the same message. It's called "Gates of Eden." When you can get back inside the "Gates of Eden" and recover your original innocence, Dylan's lyrics suggest, the world's problems -- war, injustice, intolerance, hypocrisy and the like -- fade away, and existence is holy and beautiful. I think that was Blake's vision, too, although Blake's half-gnostic, half-antinomian metaphysics was probably even more complicated that Bob Dylan's. I disagree with those who read this poem as an intimation of mortality, as some kind of elegy for the fleetingness of life -- a la the Book of Ecclesiastes, or a la Frost's comment that "nothing gold can stay." Blake as a thinker doesn't generally deny mortality, but there's no mention of it at all in this verse. Nor is there any mention of Jesus. For better or worse, Blake's vision in this poem is not epicurean or stoic, not focused on the inherent changeability of the universe. It's not focused on salvation through acceptance of Christ, at least Blake isn't talking about that. It's also not fundamentally concerned with the inevitability of death and suffering -- as, say, Frost's poems and the Buddha's teachings are. Blake here is celebrating the mystical sense of bliss that can arise from achieving oneness with the moment. "To hold infinity in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour."

Answer 3

Waiting on more answers before I share my view

Answer 4

This is a great question, and one that has been confusing me for a very long time.

Answer 5

Their all on the periodic table. Do your own homework? What the hell does that question mean anyways? Google it or look in your textbook