Over the last few decades there has been increasing interest in oxometalate and polyoxometalate applications to medicine and pharmacology. This interest arose, at least in part, due to the properties of these classes of compounds as anti-cancer, anti-diabetic agents, and also for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, among others. However, our understanding of the mechanism of action would be improved if biological
models could be used to clarify potential toxicological effects in main cellular processes. Sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) vesicles, containing a large amount of Ca2+-ATPase, an enzyme that accumulates calcium
by active transport using ATP, have been suggested as a useful model to study the effects of oxometalates on calcium homeostasis. In the present article, it is shown that decavanadate, decaniobate, vanadate, tungstate and molybdate, all inhibited SR Ca2+-ATPase, with the following IC50 values: 15, 35, 50, 400 μM and 45 mM, respectively. Decaniobate (Nb10), is the strongest P-type enzyme inhibitor, after decavanadate (V10). Atomic-absorption spectroscopy (AAS) analysis, indicates that decavanadate binds to the protein
with a 1:1 decavanadate:Ca2+-ATPase stoichiometry. Furthermore, V10 binds with similar extension to all the protein conformations, which occur during calcium translocation by active transport, namely E1, E1P, E2 and E2P, as analysed by AAS. In contrast, it was confirmed that the binding of monomeric vanadate (H2VO4 2−; V1) to the calcium pump is favoured only for the E2 and E2P conformations of the ATPase, whereas
no significant amount of vanadate is bound to the E1 and E1P conformations. Scatchard plot analysis, confirmed a 1:1 ratio for decavanadate–Ca2+-ATPase, with a dissociation constant, kd of 1 μM−1. The interaction of decavanadate V10O28
6− (V10) with Ca2+-ATPase is prevented by the isostructural and isoelectronic decaniobate Nb10O28 6− (Nb10), whereas no significant effects were detected with ATP or with heparin, a known competitive ATP binding molecule, suggesting that V10 binds non-competitively, with respect to ATP, to
the protein. Finally, it was shown that decaniobate inhibits SR Ca2+-ATPase activity in a non competitive type of inhibition, with respect to ATP. Taken together, these data demonstrate that decameric niobate and
vanadate species are stronger inhibitors of the SR calcium ATPase than simple monomeric vanadate, tungstate and molybdate oxometalates, thus affecting calcium homeostasis, cell signalling and cell bioenergetics, as well many other cellular processes. The ability of these oxometalates to act either as phosphate analogues,
as a transition-state analogue in enzyme-catalysed phosphoryl group transfer processes and as potentially nucleotide-dependent enzymes modulators or inhibitors, suggests that different oxometalates may reveal different mechanistic preferences in these classes of enzymes
