Superoxide dismutase (Molecule of the Month for April 2001)
Screensaver Lifesaver Proteins
Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is an enzyme that removes the superoxide (O2-) radical. We hear a lot in nutritional news about "antioxidants". Think of SOD as a natural antioxidant. Since cancer cells produce more oxidants than normal cells, they can basically oxidize themselves to death. That is why SOD is a target protein — if SOD is inhibited in the cancer cell, the cancer cells are damaged, controlling growth
Find out more about the ScreenSaver LifeSaver project http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/curecancer.html
The protein structures are from the RSCB Protein Data Bank. with a reference H.M.Berman, J.Westbrook, Z.Feng, G.Gilliland, T.N.Bhat, H.Weissig, I.N.Shindyalov, P.E.Bourne: The Protein Data Bank. Nucleic Acids Research, 28 pp. 235-242 (2000)
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Superoxide dismutase structure
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Update by Karl Harrison
(Molecule of the Month for
April 2001
)
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