It is now well known that zinc is crucial for the synthesis of nucleic acids and, consequently, for cellular division. However, (67)Zn, the NMR-detectable isotope, is one of the isotopes most poorly studied by NMR. The strategy used for NMR studies is the substitution of Zn by (113)Cd. In this work, we employed (13)C, (113)Cd NMR (CPMAS), X-ray and DFT calculation in order to evaluate the Zn-Cd substitution using 8-hydroxyquinoline like prototype compound. Our results show that there are strong structural and electronics effects are involved in the substitution.