The Metallome

Abstract

Biological transition metals are essential for all organisms but are needed in very small quantities. They are thought to play important roles in a variety of biological processes. A lot of effort in this field has gone into experimental studies of metal utilization pathways and metalloproteins, whereas computational and systems biology analyses of the metallomes (or metalloproteomes) have been limited. In this article, the authors focus on the recent advances in bioinformatics, and especially comparative genomics, which provide significant insights into evolution and function of metal utilization. These studies suggest that zinc and iron are used by all or almost all living organisms, whereas most other metals, such as copper, molybdenum, nickel, and cobalt, show scattered occurrence in various groups of organisms. Different environmental and other factors have been suggested to affect the utilization of metals and evolution of metalloprotein families. We also discuss recent advances in high throughput ionomics studies in eukaryotes. Overall, bioinformatics analyses of metallomes provide a foundation for the systems level understanding of metal metabolism as well as for exploring the functions and evolutionary trends in metal utilization.