Publications

Investigation of biologically-designed metal-specific chelators for potential metal recovery and waste remediation applications

Criscenti, Louise C.; Ockwig, Nathan O.

Bacteria, algae and plants produce metal-specific chelators to capture required nutrient or toxic trace metals. Biological systems are thought to be very efficient, honed by evolutionary forces over time. Understanding the approaches used by living organisms to select for specific metals in the environment may lead to design of cheaper and more effective approaches for metal recovery and contaminant-metal remediation. In this study, the binding of a common siderophore, desferrioxamine B (DFO-B), to three aqueous metal cations, Fe(II), Fe(III), and UO{sub 2}(VI) was investigated using classical molecular dynamics. DFO-B has three acetohydroxamate groups and a terminal amine group that all deprotonate with increasing pH. For all three metals, complexes with DFO-B (-2) are the most stable and favored under alkaline conditions. Under more acidic conditions, the metal-DFO complexes involve chelation with both acetohydroxamate and acetylamine groups. The approach taken here allows for detailed investigation of metal binding to biologically-designed organic ligands.