Many body study of iron(III) bound human serum transferrin

TL;DR

This study applies advanced dynamical mean field theory to investigate the complex electron interactions in iron-bound human serum transferrin, providing new insights into its electronic and optical properties.

Contribution

It introduces the use of dynamical mean field theory to study transferrins, offering a higher level of analysis of electron interactions than previous methods.

Findings

Data on effective spin states

Information on multiplet states

Optical spectra of iron-transferrin complex

Abstract

Transferrins are proteins responsible for transporting metal ions in all vertebrates. However, the iron binding properties of transferrins remain poorly understood. Iron, as a transition metal, forms ions with partially-occupied 3d subshells. The electrons within the 3d orbitals of iron-bound transferrin are therefore highly localized, and interact with one another in a complex manner that cannot be fully characterized by considering each electron separately. In this work, we make use of dynamical mean field theory, a technique that accounts for the strong interactions between these electrons. This is a higher level of theory than has ever been used to study transferrins. We present novel data on the effective spin, multiplet states and optical spectra of iron-bound human serum transferrin.