Metals have been adopted by biological systems because of their catalytic versatility, but their reactivity can also make them toxic at low concentrations. Hence they are classified as nutrients or poisons. But this is a misleading division, because many enzyme catalysts have reaction centers with diverse and variable metal associates. Such flexibility is useful for organisms living in metal-poor environments that may have to take what they can get, but it is potentially dangerous. Thus, the availability of trace metals may govern an organism's nutritional strategy in a particular environment. This special issue explores the double-edged nature of metal chemistry, how it can be exploited for our benefit, and the consequences if it is not tamed.
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Ash et al. (2003) studied this question.