[Participation of polyvalent metals in the evolution of oxidoreductases]

The study of the participation of metals in evolution of oxidation-reduction processes is subdivided into two periods. During the first of them, from 1897 to 1937, the significance of manganese, iron, titanium, molybdenum, vanadium and copper in most important processes of metabolism was discovered. The second period, from 1937 to 1977, was devoted to the study of the role of metals in individual representatives of oxidoreductases and their evolution during transition of organisms from anaerobiosis to aerobiosis. In this evolution of special importance were bimetallic enzymes, such as nitrogenase, some nitrate reductases and hydrogenases, carbon dioxide reductase, xanthine oxidase, cytochrome oxidase. Owing to their ability to accomplish conjugated oxidation-reduction reactions, these oxidoreductases were transitional to still more complicated polymetallic systems with whose participation the electron transfer chains in subcellular structures were formed.