Two of the body's own enzymes depend on copper as a cofactor when nerve cells manufacture their chemical messengers. The EU reviewed and authorized a health-related claim on the nervous system in this connection.
Read the Side NotesWhen one nerve cell communicates with the next, the electrical signal on its own isn't enough. At the end of the fiber, that signal has to become a chemical message — a molecule that gets released, reaches the receiving cell, and triggers a response there. Before a molecule like this can take on that job, though, it often first has to be brought into its final, working form.
Several of the body's own enzymes take part in exactly this last step of production, and some of them need a metal locked into their active center just to work at all. Copper is one of those metals. The link is grounded in scientific opinions from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA); building on those opinions, the European Commission gave copper its own authorized wording on the nervous system.
On this page and in the Side Notes, Pollucitaro traces two specific enzymes that illustrate this dependence on copper, and sets out what the authorized wording actually says — and what it doesn't.
Many neuropeptides — small messenger molecules of the nervous system built from amino acids — first leave the cell as a precursor carrying an extra glycine at its end. In this form, they bind poorly, if at all, to their receptor. Only an enzyme called peptidylglycine alpha-amidating monooxygenase, PAM for short, turns the precursor into the finished, working messenger.
The precursor molecule carries a glycine at its end that still stands in the way of its actual effect.
The enzyme's first part, the PHM subunit, carries two separate copper ions. Together with oxygen and ascorbic acid, they hydroxylate the precursor's terminal glycine.
A neighboring part of the enzyme, the PAL subunit, splits off the hydroxylated piece. What's left is the peptide with an amide group at its end — the form that many receptors expect for binding.
“Copper contributes to normal functioning of the nervous system”
EU-authorized wording · Regulation (EU) No 432/2012
PAM doesn't work alone: a related enzyme, dopamine beta-hydroxylase, carries out a different conversion in certain nerve cells, but follows the same basic chemical principle. Both belong to the group of copper-dependent monooxygenases — enzymes that transfer an oxygen atom onto a substrate in a targeted way.
What both enzymes need for this is a metal that can readily change its charge. Depending on the situation, copper exists as Cu¹⁺ or as Cu²⁺, and can therefore take up or give off single electrons — exactly the step a monooxygenase reaction needs at its metal center. Other minerals, which mainly carry out a structural task, don't bring this property along in the same form.
Copper is a trace element the body needs only in small amounts but cannot make on its own. It has to arrive regularly through food. Part of it is built into enzymes such as PAM, which, in the way just described, take part in the normal functioning of the nervous system.
“Copper contributes to normal functioning of the nervous system”
EU-authorized wording · Regulation (EU) No 432/2012
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