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Query: UNIPROT:P02794 (ferritin)
 17,525 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The aim of the present work is to gather new information on the ferritin molecule. Natural crystals of ferritin occurring in the yolk platelets of a mollusc oocyte were studied. Their crystallographic structure was found to be equivalent to one of the structures obtained by artificial crystallization (fcc; a = 15 nm). Individual ferritin particles isolated from horse spleen were studied by microdiffraction techniques, using field emission gun transmission electron microscopy. The iron core crystals display a hexagonal structure; our results confirm the value of the unit cell parameter a (0.51 nm) and, for the first time, we have been able to extract the value of the unit cell parameter c (0.95 nm). Thus, among the three models described in the literature for the crystalline structure of the iron complex, our results corroborate that of Towe and Bradley (J. Colloid. Interf. Sci., 1967, 25, 384-392).
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PMID:Crystallographic study of the ferritin molecule: new results obtained from natural crystals in situ (mollusc oocyte) and from isolated molecules (horse spleen). 295 42

The ultrastructure of the crystalline ferric mineral that forms the central core of ferritin macro-molecules has been examined by means of ultrahigh resolution electron microscopy at 100 kV. Very high magnification dark-field images reveal the presence of either a single large crystal or several smaller crystallites within many of the cores. When the highly crystalline core contents are suitably oriented to transmit their Bragg reflections through the objective aperture, regular fringes separated by 2-9.5 A have been visualized. The geometrical relations of lattice fringes and of periodically organized point details in these individual crystallites largely confirm the structural model proposed by Towe and Bradley (1967). The highly variable occupancy of ferric ions in certain planes of the lattice suggests that 20-33% of the iron content of fully saturated ferritin should undergo more rapid physiological release than does the remainder, and that iron uptake will have kinetics that depend upon more than only the maximal rate of crystallization.
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PMID:The ultrastructure of ferritin macromolecules. The lattice structure of the core crystallites. 452 Dec 10