Biocurious

/ a biophysics blog

Molecule of the Month: Cytochrome p450

Posted 2 October 2006 by PhilipJ under

If you have a headache and take a drug to block the pain, you’ll notice that the effects of the drug wear off in a few hours. This happens because you have a powerful detoxification system that finds unusual chemicals, like drugs, and flushes them out of your body. This system fights all sorts of unpleasant chemicals that we eat and breathe, including drugs, poisonous compounds in plants, carcinogens formed during cooking, and environmental pollutants. The cytochrome p450 enzymes are our first line of defense in this chemical battle.

The cytochrome p450 enzymes find unusual molecules and add oxygen atoms to them. In most cases, this has the effect of making the molecule more soluble in water, and thus, easier to flush out of the body. The added oxygen also provides a ready handle for other detoxifying enzymes to take hold and further modify, and destroy, these toxic molecules. This task of adding oxygen is chemically tricky, and cytochrome p450 enzymes use a powerful molecular tool to perform the reaction: an iron atom in a heme group.

More info and high res images here.

  

  1. Doug    18 October 06    #

    Try these sites for 3D views.

    http://molvis.sdsc.edu/fgij/fg.htm?mol=1w0e

    or

    http://molvis.sdsc.edu/fgij/fg.htm?mol=2j0d

    From
    FirstGlance in Jmol
    A simple tool for macromolecular visualization.

    through
    Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
    http://www.nature.com/nsmb/journal/v13/n2/full/nsmb0206-93.html


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