Chelating Agents and the Regulation of Metal Ions

Up to about the early 1980s it was perhaps still possible to summarize in a review of a moderate length the development of the medicinal applications of chelation chemistry and the exploitation of such chemistry in regulating the metal ion concentrations in the body. However, in the last few years there has a great surge in the development of chelation chemistry and its usage in medicine and related areas of life sciences research. It is no longer the case that such a review primarily concentrates upon the use of chelating agents in removing toxic metals from the body but it must now cover the use of chelating agents in the imaging procedures nuclear medicine and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the use of chelating agents in unravelling the biochemistry of reactive oxidative species (ROS) and the control and measurement of intracellular calcium ions. It is in the recent applications that there have been the greatest developments over the last ten years.