This book was conceived in 2016. It is the second volume in what is intended to be a series of edited books that cover the biological roles, reactivities and functions of heme proteins – the first being Heme Peroxidases in 2016.1
The aim of this book is to highlight the multitude of varied reactivities exhibited by O2-dependent heme enzymes. We have organized the contents thematically, to cover model heme systems and protein design (chapters from David P. Goldberg, Yi Lu, Koji Oohora/Takashi Hayashi, and Jiangyun Wang); heme reactivity (Sam P. de Visser, Thomas M. Makris and Erik T. Yukl/Victor L. Davidson); the structure, reactivity and biological function of heme oxygenases (Masao Ikeda-Saito, Syun-Ru Yeh/Maria Almira Correia, and Victor Guallar); structure and reactivity in the cytochromes P450 (Emily E. Scott, Manfred T. Reetz, and David B. Goodin); and heme oxidases and O2-dependent nitrogen chemistry (Mårten Wikström, Yoshitsugu Shiro/Takehiko Tosha, and Pierre Moënne-Loccoz). In doing so, we hope that we have managed to capture the wide versatility of heme enzyme reactivity in biology.
We wish to express our sincere appreciation to all of the authors who have so generously contributed their time and intellectual ideas to the production of Dioxygen-dependent Heme Enzymes. Their photographs are reproduced in the front of the book, so that all readers can match faces to names. We hope that their collection of articles will be a useful and up-to-date resource for both experienced researchers and those new to the field alike. And, most of all, we hope that the articles that we have collated here will stimulate new ways of thinking, and will be helpful to those looking to embark on new research directions in heme catalysis in the future.
Masao Ikeda-Saito, Sendai, Japan
Emma Raven, Bristol, England
Raven and Ikeda-Saito (at ICBIC14 in Nagoya, 2009)
