Title: tetrapyrroles
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - tetrapyrroles
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.T06291
Status: current

Definition
Natural pigments containing four pyrrole rings joined by one-carbon units linking position 2 of one pyrrole ring to position 5 of the next. porphyrins are macrocyclic tetrapyrroles. E.g. bilin (a linear tetrapyrrole). 

Related Term
- porphyrins: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/P04765

Source
- PAC, 1995, 67, 1307. 'Glossary of class names of organic compounds and reactivity intermediates based on structure (IUPAC Recommendations 1995)' on page 1371 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199567081307)

Related Reference
- White Book, 2nd ed., p. 279 (https://iupac.qmul.ac.uk/bibliog/white.html)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/T06291/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/T06291/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/T06291/xml

Citation: Citation: 'tetrapyrroles' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.T06291
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Accessed: 2026-05-06T18:29:30+00:00