Question 22.6: The protein transferrin is involved in the transport of iron...
The protein transferrin is involved in the transport of iron into cells. Iron accumulation in the human body has been implicated in diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and thalassemia. The chelating ligand deferoxamine (DFO) is used to treat thalassemia; the complex between iron and DFO is eliminated from the body. Given the formation constants for the complexation of iron(III) by transferrin (Equation 1) and the reaction of DFO with iron (Equation 2), calculate the equilibrium constant for the ligand exchange reaction between DFO and transferrin (Equation 3).
Fe^{3+}(aq) + transferrin(aq) \rightleftharpoons Fe(transferrin)^{3+}(aq)
K_{f,1} = 4.7 \times 10^{20} (1)
Fe^{3+}(aq) + DFO(aq) \rightleftharpoons Fe(DFO)^{3+}(aq)
K_{f,2} = 4.0 \times 10^{30} (2)
Fe(transferrin)^{3+}(aq) + DFO(aq) \rightleftharpoons Fe(DFO)^{3+}(aq) + transferrin(aq)
K_{3} =? (3)
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