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The family of flavodiiron proteins (FDPs) plays an important role in the scavenging and detoxification of both molecular oxygen and nitric oxide. Using electrons from a flavin mononucleotide cofactor molecular oxygen is reduced to water and nitric oxide is reduced to nitrous oxide and water. While the mechanism for NO reduction in FDPs has been studied extensively, there is very little information available about O2 reduction. Here we use hybrid density functional theory (DFT) to study the mechanism for O2 reduction in FDPs. An important finding is that a proton coupled reduction is needed after the O2 molecule has bound to the diferrous diiron active site and before the O–O bond can be cleaved. This is in contrast to the mechanism for NO reduction, where both N–N bond formation and N–O bond cleavage occurs from the same starting structure without any further reduction, according to both experimental and computational results. This computational result for the O2 reduction mechanism should be possible to evaluate experimentally. Another difference between the two substrates is that the actual O–O bond cleavage barrier is low, and not involved in rate-limiting the reduction process, while the barrier connected with bond cleavage/formation in the NO reduction process is of similar height as the rate-limiting steps. We suggest that these results may be part of the explanation for the generally higher activity for O2 reduction as compared to NO reduction in most FDPs. Comparisons are also made to the O2 reduction reaction in the family of heme‑copper oxidases. more...

Energy conversion by electron transport chains occurs through the sequential transfer of electrons between protein complexes and intermediate electron carriers, creating the proton motive force that enables ATP synthesis and membrane transport. These protein complexes can also form higher order assemblies known as respiratory supercomplexes (SCs). The electron transport chain of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa is closely linked with its ability to invade host tissue, tolerate harsh conditions, and resist antibiotics but is poorly characterized. Here, we determine the structure of a P. aeruginosa SC that forms between the quinol:cytochrome c oxidoreductase (cytochrome bc1) and one of the organism’s terminal oxidases, cytochrome cbb3, which is found only in some bacteria. Remarkably, the SC structure also includes two intermediate electron carriers: a diheme cytochrome c4 and a single heme cytochrome c5. Together, these proteins allow electron transfer from ubiquinol in cytochrome bc1 to oxygen in cytochrome cbb3. We also present evidence that different isoforms of cytochrome cbb3 can participate in formation of this SC without changing the overall SC architecture. Incorporating these different subunit isoforms into the SC would allow the bacterium to adapt to different environmental conditions. Bioinformatic analysis focusing on structural motifs in the SC suggests that cytochrome bc1–cbb3 SCs also exist in other bacterial pathogens. more...

The flavin dependent nonheme diiron proteins comprise a family of enzymes, which can act as scavengers for both molecular oxygen and nitric oxide. The reduction of nitric oxide to nitrous oxide and water in flavodiiron proteins (FDPs) has been studied both experimentally and computationally, but the reaction mechanism is far from well understood. From experiments, it is known that two NO molecules can bind to the reduced active site, forming an observable diferrous dinitrosyl complex. A main question has been whether nitrous oxide can be formed directly from the diferrous dinitrosyl complex or if further reduction and/or protonation is needed to make this step feasible. Experiments have shown that nitrous oxide can be formed in a deflavinated form of the enzyme, indicating that further reduction is not needed. In the present study, hybrid density functional theory calculations are performed on a cluster model of the Thermotoga maritima FDP active site. We show that nitric oxide can be reduced to nitrous oxide and water using a direct coupling mechanism, i.e., without further additions to the reduced active site. The diferrous dinitrosyl complex can form an unstable N-N bridging hyponitrite intermediate, which can rotate into an N-O bond bridging hyponitrite with a low barrier. From this intermediate, the N-O bond cleavage leading to release of nitrous oxide is energetically feasible. An energy profile for the entire catalytic cycle of such a direct coupling mechanism is presented, and it is shown that the suggested mechanism agrees with data on FDP variants. Finally, an energy profile for the entire process starting with the fully reduced enzyme turning over four NO equivalents is constructed. This energy profile suggests explanations to experimentally observed states, such as the dihydroxyl form of the fully oxidized diferric state, and the difference with respect to returning to the original oxidized state after NO reduction between the flavinated and the deflavin more...

In the final steps of energy conservation in aerobic organisms, free energy from electron transfer through the respiratory chain is transduced into a proton electrochemical gradient across a membrane. In mitochondria and many bacteria, reduction of the dioxygen electron acceptor is catalyzed by cytochrome c oxidase (complex IV), which receives electrons from cytochrome bc(1) (complex III), via membrane-bound or watersoluble cytochrome c. These complexes function independently, but in many organisms they associate to form supercomplexes. Here, we review the structural features and the functional significance of the nonobligate III2IV1/2 Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitochondrial super-complex as well as the obligate III2IV2 supercomplex from actinobacteria. The analysis is centered around the Q-cycle of complex III, proton uptake by CytcO, as well as mechanistic and structural solutions to the electronic link between complexes III and IV. more...

Respiration is carried out by a series of membrane-bound complexes in the inner mitochondrial membrane or in the cytoplasmic membrane of bacteria. Increasing evidence shows that these complexes organize into larger supercomplexes. In this work, we identified a supercomplex composed of cytochrome (cyt.) bc1 and aa3-type cyt. c oxidase in Rhodobacter sphaeroides. We purified the supercomplex using a His-tag on either of these complexes. The results from activity assays, native and denaturing PAGE, size exclusion chromatography, electron microscopy, optical absorption spectroscopy and kinetic studies on the purified samples support the formation and coupled quinol oxidation:O2 reduction activity of the cyt. bc1-aa3 supercomplex. The potential role of the membrane-anchored cyt. cy as a component in supercomplexes was also investigated. more...

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae respiratory supercomplex factor 2 (Rcf2) is a 224-residue protein located in the mitochondrial inner membrane where it is involved in the formation of supercomplexes composed of cytochrome bc(1) and cytochrome c oxidase. We previously demonstrated that Rcf2 forms a dimer in dodecylphosphocholine micelles, and here we report the solution NMR structure of this Rcf2 dimer. Each Rcf2 monomer has two soluble alpha helices and five putative transmembrane (TM) alpha helices, including an unexpectedly charged TM helix at the C terminus, which mediates dimer formation. The NOE contacts indicate the presence of inter-monomer salt bridges and hydrogen bonds at the dimer interface, which stabilize the Rcf2 dimer structure. Moreover, NMR chemical shift change mapping upon lipid titrations as well as molecular dynamics analysis reveal possible structural changes upon embedding Rcf2 into a native lipid environment. Our results contribute to the understanding of respiratory supercomplex formation and regulation. more...

Efficiently carrying out the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is critical for many applications in biology and chemistry, such as bioenergetics and fuel cells, respectively. In biology, this reaction is carried out by large, transmembrane oxidases such as heme-copper oxidases (HCOs) and cytochrome bd oxidases. Common to these oxidases is the presence of a glutamate residue next to the active site, but its precise role in regulating the oxidase activity remains unclear. To gain insight into its role, we herein report that incorporation of glutamate next to a designed heme-copper center in two biosynthetic models of HCOs improves O2 binding affinity, facilitates protonation of reaction intermediates, and eliminates release of reactive oxygen species. High-resolution crystal structures of the models revealed extended, water-mediated hydrogen-bonding networks involving the glutamate. Electron paramagnetic resonance of the cryoreduced oxy-ferrous centers at cryogenic temperature followed by thermal annealing allowed observation of the key hydroperoxo intermediate that can be attributed to the hydrogen-bonding network. By demonstrating these important roles of glutamate in oxygen reduction biochemistry, this work offers deeper insights into its role in native oxidases, which may guide the design of more efficient artificial ORR enzymes or catalysts for applications such as fuel cells. more...

The origin of novel genes and beneficial functions is of fundamental interest in evolutionary biology. New genes can originate from different mechanisms, including horizontal gene transfer, duplication-divergence, and de novo from non-coding DNA sequences. Comparative genomics has generated strong evidence for de novo emergence of genes in various organisms, but experimental demonstration of this process has been limited to localized randomization in preexisting structural scaffolds. This bypasses the basic requirement of de novo gene emergence, i.e., lack of an ancestral gene. We constructed highly diverse plasmid libraries encoding randomly generated open reading frames and expressed them in Escherichia coli to identify short peptides that could confer a beneficial and selectable phenotype in vivo (in a living cell). Selections on antibiotic-containing agar plates resulted in the identification of three peptides that increased aminoglycoside resistance up to 48-fold. Combining genetic and functional analyses, we show that the peptides are highly hydrophobic, and by inserting into the membrane, they reduce membrane potential, decrease aminoglycoside uptake, and thereby confer high-level resistance. This study demonstrates that randomized DNA sequences can encode peptides that confer selective benefits and illustrates how expression of random sequences could spark the origination of new genes. In addition, our results also show that this question can be addressed experimentally by expression of highly diverse sequence libraries and subsequent selection for specific functions, such as resistance to toxic compounds, the ability to rescue auxotrophic/temperature-sensitive mutants, and growth on normally nonused carbon sources, allowing the exploration of many different phenotypes. IMPORTANCE De novo gene origination from nonfunctional DNA sequences was long assumed to be implausible. However, recent studies have shown that large fractions of genomic noncoding DNA are t more...

A key step of denitrification, the reduction of toxic nitric oxide to nitrous oxide, is catalysed by cytochrome c-dependent NO reductase (cNOR). cNOR contains four redox-active cofactors: three hemes and a nonheme iron (Fe-B). Heme b(3) and Fe-B constitute the active site, but the specific mechanism of NO-binding events and reduction is under debate. Here, we used a recently constructed, fully folded and hemylated cNOR variant that lacks Fe-B to investigate the role of Fe-B during catalysis. We show that in the Fe-B-less cNOR, binding of both NO and O-2 to heme b(3) still occurs but further reduction is impaired, although to a lesser degree for O-2 than for NO. Implications for the catalytic mechanisms of cNOR are discussed. more...