Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 17, 2026

EPR Monitored Redox Titration of the Cofactors of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Nar1
Published on: November 26, 2014
Structure, function, and formation of biological iron-sulfur clusters
Deborah C Johnson1, Dennis R Dean, Archer D Smith
1Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA. dejohns4@vt.edu
Abstract:
Iron-sulfur [Fe-S] clusters are ubiquitous and evolutionary ancient prosthetic groups that are required to sustain fundamental life processes. Owing to their remarkable structural plasticity and versatile chemical/electronic features [Fe-S] clusters participate in electron transfer, substrate binding/activation, iron/sulfur storage, regulation of gene expression, and enzyme activity. Formation of intracellular [Fe-S] clusters does not occur spontaneously but requires a complex biosynthetic machinery. Three different types of [Fe-S] cluster biosynthetic systems have been discovered, and all of them are mechanistically unified by the requirement for a cysteine desulfurase and the participation of an [Fe-S] cluster scaffolding protein. Important mechanistic questions related to [Fe-S] cluster biosynthesis involve the molecular details of how [Fe-S] clusters are assembled on scaffold proteins, how [Fe-S] clusters are transferred from scaffolds to target proteins, how various accessory proteins participate in [Fe-S] protein maturation, and how the biosynthetic process is regulated.
Related Concept Videos
Sulfur Assimilation
Microbes and Other Elemental Cycles
Electron Transport Chain: Complex III and IV
The Supercomplexes in the Crista Membrane
Electron Transport Chains
The ETC is comprised of...
Electron Transport Chain: Complex I and II
ROS generation is regulated and maintained at moderate levels necessary...

