any of a group of pigments occurring widely in animal and plant tissues and having a heterocyclic structure formed from four pyrrole rings linked by four methylene groups
Word origin
C20: from Greek porphura purple, referring to its colour
porphyrin in American English
(ˈpɔrfərɪn)
noun
any of a group of pyrrole derivatives, found in cytoplasm, that combine with iron and magnesium to form heme and chlorophyll, respectively
Word origin
< Gr porphyra, purple + -in1
Examples of 'porphyrin' in a sentence
porphyrin
The heme component is a porphyrin in which the metal ion that is coordinated is iron in the ferrous state, that is, Fe+2.