I am studying multiheme cytochromes and I just have a naive question. Does the iron inside the heme of cytochrome display any magnetic properties? For example, any chance they are ferromagnetic? Can the protein be aligned under strong magnetic field?
The heme is a cofactor containing a metal atom, often iron.
Iron atoms are generally paramagnetic due to the weak exchange caused by the large distances between Fe. They can be seen as highly dispersed magnetic dipoles
If we apply an external magnetic field to heme of cytochrome, these magnetic dipoles will try to align with the applied field. However, as each heme group is attached to the functional group (C,H, N, O,..), these ligands can prevent any heme rotational movement in order to align the Fe spins.
It seems that is the main reason some experimental results fail to detect the paramagnetism in the heme of cytochrome .
- Badges
- Science topic