Organophosphonate-degrading PhnZ reveals an emerging family of HD domain mixed-valent diiron oxygenases

The founding members of the HD-domain protein superfamily are phosphohydrolases, and newly discovered members are generally annotated as such. However, myo-inositol oxygenase (MIOX) exemplifies a second, very different function that has evolved within the common scaffold of this superfamily. A recently discovered HD protein, PhnZ, catalyzes conversion of 2-amino-1-hydroxyethylphosphonate to glycine and phosphate, culminating a bacterial pathway for the utilization of environmentally abundant 2-aminoethylphosphonate. Using Mössbauer and EPR spectroscopies, X-ray crystallography, and activity measurements, we show here that, like MIOX, PhnZ employs a mixed-valent Fe(II)/Fe(III) cofactor for the O2-dependent oxidative cleavage of its substrate. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that many more HD proteins may catalyze yet-unknown oxygenation reactions using this hitherto exceptional Fe(II)/Fe(III) cofactor. The results demonstrate that the catalytic repertoire of the HD superfamily extends well beyond phosphohydrolysis and suggest that the mechanism used by MIOX and PhnZ may be a common strategy for oxidative C-X bond cleavage.

Intermediates in dioxygen activation by methane monooxygenase: a QM/MM study

Protein effects in the activation of dioxygen by methane monooxygenase (MMO) were investigated by using combined QM/MM and broken-symmetry Density Functional Theory (DFT) methods. The effects of a novel empirical scheme recently developed by our group on the relative DFT energies of the various intermediates in the catalytic cycle are investigated. Inclusion of the protein leads to much better agreement between the experimental and computed geometric structures for the reduced form (MMOH(red)). Analysis of the electronic structure of MMOH(red) reveals that the two iron atoms have distinct environments. Different coordination geometries tested for the MMOH(peroxo) intermediate reveal that, in the protein environment, the mu-eta2,eta2 structure is more stable than the others. Our analysis also shows that the protein helps to drive reactants toward products along the reaction path. Furthermore, these results demonstrate the importance of including the protein environment in our models and the usefulness of the QM/MM approach for accurate modeling of enzymatic reactions. A discrepancy remains in our calculation of the Fe-Fe distance in our model of HQ as compared to EXAFS data obtained several years ago, for which we currently do not have an explanation.