Curiosity about two rare kidney diseases led, in the mids, to the discovery of two previously unknown proteins that twist around each other to form the triple-helical collagen IV molecule, like cables supporting a bridge. Disease results when these cables are defective or damaged. In , colleagues led by Roberto Vanacore, Ph. A defective bond may trigger the rare auto-immune disease Goodpasture's syndrome.
The disorder is named for the late Vanderbilt pathologist and former medical school dean Ernest Goodpasture, M. That discovery led to simple question: how is the bond formed? In , Bhave, assistant professor of Medicine, Cummings, now a postdoctoral fellow, and Vanacore led the effort that found the answer -- the enzyme peroxidasin. Conserved across the animal kingdom, peroxidasin also may play a role in disease. An overactive enzyme may lead to excessive deposition of collagen IV and thickening of the basement membrane, which can impair kidney function, they reported in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.
Theodore Zava Friday, June 06, Bromine Background Bromine is a halogen and the 35th element on the periodic table, sharing similar elemental properties with iodine, chlorine and fluorine.
In the United States the typical daily intake is around mg from grains, nuts and fish. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers [PBDE] , water purification, medicines e. Bromide inhalers , swimming pool disinfectants, and popular beverages e.
Brominated vegetable oil in Gatorade, Fanta, Mountain Dew. Bromine is an essential trace element for assembly of collagen IV sceffolds in tissue development and architecture.
Pesticides residues in food. In: Other trace elements. Fact Sheet. The toxicology of bromide ion. Crit Rev Toxicol.
J Anal At Spectrom. Determination of iodine and bromine in plasma and urine by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Bromism: In: Parfitt K, ed.
Martindale 32nd ed. Bromine supplementation may improve the health of patients on dialysis or total parenteral nutrition TPN , for example. The answer lies in the enzyme peroxidasin. Ionic bromide is an important co-factor for this enzyme, which enables peroxidasin to form the sulfilimine bond and thus build collagen-IV. This fundamental discovery has important implications for human disease. For example , Bromine supplementation may improve the health of patients on dialysis and of people which are on a total parenteral nutrition diet.
What are your thoughts on bromine being essential to human life? They dampened the libido, which only reinforced the common misconception at the time that epilepsy was brought on by excessive masturbation. This side-effect also lies behind the urban myth that bromide was added to the tea of prisoners and World War I soldiers in order to reduce sexual urges.
For most of the 20th Century, the main use of bromine was something now known to have been seriously damaging to public health. When lead first started being added to petrol to improve engine performance, it was found that deposits built up, eventually clogging the engine. The solution was to add brominated chemicals to the petrol.
As the fuel burnt, the bromine combined with the lead, producing lead bromide. This readily passed out through the exhaust, but of course then proceeded to spread the poisonous heavy metal throughout our cities. Leaded - and brominated - petrol is no more.
What do you do? You just run! This is the story of flame retardants. A fire is a self-perpetuating chemical reaction in which the high temperature encourages fuel to combine with oxygen in the air, further raising the temperature in the process. Bromine disrupts this chemical reaction. Because the bromine is itself so hyper-reactive, in effect it queue-jumps the oxygen and re-bonds with the fuel, rendering it inert.
Brominated flame retardants crop up in a surprising number of places. From a bag, Anat produces, Mary Poppins-style, a series of products - white beads that are mixed into the plastic casings and circuit-boards of TVs and computers, fluffy yellow pillow stuffing that refuses to catch fire, and blue polystyrene bricks that are used as cavity wall insulation in homes.
Well, take for example, polybrominated diphenyl ethers PBDEs , which used to be widely used to prevent materials from melting. No longer. It is set to be banned in the EU next year, after an academic study in Texas in found that tiny amounts of the stuff were getting into some supermarket foods. The retardants are organic molecules - an entirely different class of chemical from bromide salts - that can take years to decompose. And although they should be tied up inside plastics and other materials, when they do get free they tend to accumulate through the food chain - meaning top predators such as humans face a particular risk of these chemicals slowly building up in our bodies.
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