Inorganic sulfur-nitrogen compounds : from gunpowder chemistry to the forefront of biological signaling
Date
14/04/2016Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The reactions between inorganic sulfur and nitrogen-bearing compound to form S-N containing species have a long history and, besides assuming importance in industrial synthetic processes, are of relevance to microbial metabolism; waste water treatment; aquatic, soil and atmospheric chemistry; and combustion processes. The recent discovery that hydrogen sulfide and nitric oxide exert often similar, sometimes mutually dependent effects in a variety of biological systems, and that the chemical interaction of these two species leads to formation of S-N compounds brought this chemistry to the attention of physiologists, biochemists and physicians. We here provide a perspective about the potential role of S-N compounds in biological signaling and briefly review their chemical properties and bioactivities in the context of the chronology of their discovery. Studies of the biological role of NO revealed why its chemistry is ideally suited for the tasks Nature has chosen for it; realising how the distinctive properties of sulfur can enrich this bioactivity does much to revive ‘die Freude am experimentellen Spiel’ of the pioneers in this field.
Citation
Cortese-Krott , M M , Butler , A R , Woollins , J D & Feelisch , M 2016 , ' Inorganic sulfur-nitrogen compounds : from gunpowder chemistry to the forefront of biological signaling ' , Dalton Transactions , vol. 45 , no. 14 , pp. 5908-5919 . https://doi.org/10.1039/C5DT05034K
Publication
Dalton Transactions
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1477-9226Type
Journal article
Rights
This is an Open Access article. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Description
The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the German Research Council (DFG CO 1305/2-1 and SFB1116 TP B06 to MCK), the Susanne-Bunnenberg-Stiftung of the Düsseldorf Heart Center (to MK, and MCK) and the Forschungskommission, Faculty of Medicine, Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf (to MCK), the UK Medical Research Council (G1001536 to MF), and the Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton (to MF).Collections
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