Coordination of Metal Ions to beta-Amyloid Peptide: Impact on Alzheimer's Disease

Metal ions play an essential role in biology. Almost a third of all proteins are metalloproteins, i.e. have a metal ion cofactor (Waldron and Robinson, 2009). Metal ions play important roles as structural elements, catalytic centers and messengers. A complex machinery is used to control the metabolism of metal ions, including transporting, sensing and storing in a selective manner.