Enzyme sulfite oxidase

Two disparate translation methods are investigated for the measurement of sulfur dioxide. Both involve interaction with an aqueous solution. In the first, collected S(IV) is translated by the enzyme sulfite oxidase to which is then measured by an enzymatic fluorometric method. The method is susceptible to interference from i CWg) efforts to minimize this interference is discussed. The second method involves the translation of SO2 into elemental Hg by reaction with aqueous mercurous nitrate at an air/liquid interface held in the pores of hydrophobic membrane tubes. The liberated mercury is measured by a conductometric gold film sensor. Both methods exhibit detection limits of 100 pptv with response times under two minutes. Ambient air measurements for air parcels containing sub-ppbv levels of SO2 show good correlation between the two methods. 

Organic sulfur metabolites are catabolized up to sulfate, which in turn is excreted via the urine. The final step of the pathway -the reduction of sulfite to sulfate - is dependent on the molybdenum-containing enzyme, sulfite oxidase. Both, a genetic disorder of sulfite oxidase synthesis or a molybdenum deficiency will reduce the urinary excretion of sulfate, but increase that of sulfite, S-sulfocysteine and thiosulfate. Due to the toxic effect of sulfite on the nervous system, this disease is characterized by mental retardation and dislocation of ocular lenses (Rajagopalan 1988). A marginal amount of molybdenum or sulfite oxidase worsen the sulfite detoxification of the... 

Similarly, a biosensor for sulfur dioxide has been designed based on the enzyme sulfite oxidase with cytochrome c as the electrOTi acceptor. Initially, sulfur dioxide, which is present in the gas phase, dissolves in the thin buffer layer that covers the surface of the biosensor where it is converted to sulfite ions. When sulfite is oxidized to sulfate, the active sites in the enzyme are reduced. The reduced form is then oxidized by cytochrome c. The reduced form of cytochrome c is monitored by electrochemical methods leading to the analytical signal. 

An oxidative activation of the lignin also can be achieved in a biochemical way by adding enzymes (phenol oxidase laccase) to the spent sulfite liquor, whereby... 

Mammalian sulfite oxidase is the last enzyme in the pathway for degradation of sulfur-containing amino acids. Sulfite oxidase (SO) catalyzes the oxidation of sulfite (SO ) to sulfate (S04 ), using the heme-containing protein, cytochrome c, as electron acceptor ... 

The enzymes that utilize molybdenum can be grouped into two broad categories (1) the nitrogenases, where Mo is part of a multinu-clear metal center, or (2) the mononuclear molybdenum enzymes, such as xanthine oxidase (XO), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) reductase, formate dehydrogenase (FDH), and sulfite oxidase (SO). The last... 

The three known crystal structures of molybdopterin-containing enzymes are from members of the first two families the aldehyde oxido-reductase from D. gigas (MOP) belongs to the xanthine oxidase family (199, 200), whereas the DMSO reductases from Rhodobacter (R.) cap-sulatus (201) and from/ , sphaeroides (202) and the formate dehydrogenase from E. coli (203) are all members of the second family of enzymes. There is a preliminary report of the X-ray structure for enzymes of the sulfite oxidase family (204). 

Molybdopterin is a component of four enzyme families all of which contain Mo(VI) the xanthine oxidase and the sulfite oxidase families with one molybdopterin and the DMSO family with two molybdopterins. There are a number of tungsten-containing enzymes with structures analogous... 

Sulfite oxidase is a dimetallic enzyme that mediates the two-electron oxidation of sulfite by the one-electron reduction of cytochrome c. This reaction is physiologically essential as the terminal step in oxidative degradation of sulfur compounds. The enzyme contains a heme cofactor in the 10 kDa N-terminal domain and a molybdenum center in the 42 kDa C-terminal domain. The catalytic cycle is depicted in Fig. 9. 

Figure 17.2 The structure of the pterin cofactor (1) which is common to most molybdenum- and tungsten-containing enzymes and schematic active site structures for members of the xanthine oxidase (2,3), sulfite oxidase (4) and DMSO reductase (5-7) enzyme families. (From Enemark et al., 2004. Copyright (2004) American Chemical Society.)...

Professor Sabyasachi Sarkar (bom in 17 May 1947) is an Indian Chemist. He has explored chemistry passionately as a prospector to observe closely the clandestine activities of nature. He has worked and continued working in the diverse branches of chemistry closely related to natural set up and as such his research embraces functional models related to hyperthermophilic to mesophilic metalloproteins enriching bioinorganic chemistry. A Rephca of a Fishy Enzyme and the reduced xanthine oxidase also have been made. Inhibition patterns in the Michaelis complex of low molecular weight hepatic sulfite oxidase model complex have been exhibited. He demonstrated that carbon dioxide molecule does bind... 

The redox properties of Mo also make it useful in enzymes that catalyze reactions involving two-electron or oxygen-atom transfer (Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001). Such enzymes include nitrate reductase, sulfite oxidase, formate dehydrogenase and aldehyde oxidase (Hille 1996 Stiefel 1997 Kroneck and Abt 2002). Hence, while Mo is rarely a terminal electron... 

The reduction of DMSO catalyzed by molybdenum is an important step in the process of anaerobic respiration carried out by a number of bacteria (169). Much like sulfite oxidase, early MCD studies of DMSO reductase were complicated by the presence of heme iron (173). The discovery of two enzymes that do not include an iron center led to the measurement of MCD spectra of Rhodobacter sphaeroides DMSO reductase that could be assigned exclusively in terms of transitions of the Mo site (Fig. 10b) (174). The six major peaks are assigned as LMCT transitions from the three highest energy occupied orbitals to the two lowest unoccupied orbitals (174). 

Two other families of molybdoenzymes are the sulfite oxidase family6463 13 and the dimethylsulfoxide reductase family.632 641 Nitrogenase (Chapter 24) constitutes a fourth family. Sulfite oxidase (Eq. 16-60) is an essential human liver enzyme (see also Chapter... 

The first hint of an essential role of molybdenum in metabolism came from the discovery that animals raised on a diet deficient in molybdenum had decreased liver xanthine oxidase activity. There is no evidence that xanthine oxidase is essential for all life, but a human genetic deficiency of sulfite oxidase or of its molybdopterin coenzyme can be lethal.646,646a,b The conversion of molybdate into the molybdopterin cofactor in E. coli depends upon at least five genes.677 In Drosophila the addition of the cyanolyzable sulfur (Eq. 16-64) is the final step in formation of xanthine dehydrogenase.678 It is of interest that sulfur (S°) can be transferred from rhodanese (see Eq. 24-45), or from a related mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase679 into the desulfo form of xanthine oxidase to generate an active enzyme.680... 

Nitrate reductase from Chlorella, an assimilatory enzyme, is a homotetramer of molecular weight 360 000 and contains one each of Mo, heme and FAD per subunit. The nitrate reductase from E. coli is a dissimilatory enzyme. EXAFS data are available on the molybdenum sites in both enzymes (Table 24).1050 The environment of the molybdenum in the assimilatory enzyme is similar to that found for sulfite oxidase, with at least two sulfur ligands near the molybdenum and a shuttle between monoxo and dioxo forms with redox change in the enzyme. This allows a similar mechanism to be put forward for the assimilatory nitrate reductase,1051 shown in equation (57), where an oxo group is transferred from nitrate to MoIV with production of nitrite and MoVI. 

The assimilatory nitrate reductase from Chlorella contains the molybdenum cofactor, as evidenced by the ability of the enzyme to donate the cofactor to the nitrate reductase of the mutant nit-1 of N. crassa. Reduction of the enzyme with NADH gives the Mov ESR signal, which is abolished on reoxidation with nitrate. Line shape and g values of the signal show a pH dependence similar to those observed previously for sulfite oxidase. The signal observed at pH 7.0 shows evidence for interaction with a single exchangeable proton.1053... 

Sulfite modified enzyme electrode. (2) L-Lactate/L-malate/ sulfite multibiosensor L-lactate dehydrogenase/L-malate dehydrogenase/ sulfite oxidase surface-modified enzyme electrodes/enzymes were deposited on the composite electrodes and covered with a dialysis membrane ... 

Redox potentials of the molybdenum centers in several of the enzymes have been obtained by potentiometric titration (Table 3a). Although the substrate reaction chemistry requires the metal center to participate in net two-electron redox reactions, the simple electron-transfer reactions of the active sites occur in one-electron steps involving the MoVI/Mov and Mov/MoIV couples. Several of the molybdenum enzymes studied have MoVI/Mov and Mov/MoIV couples that differ by less than 40 mV. However, in sulfite oxidase the Movl/Mov (38 mV) and Mov/Molv (-239 mV) couples are separated by roughly 275 mV [88], In formate dehydrogenase (D. desulfuricans) the MoVI/Mov (-160 mV) and Mov/MoIV (-330 mV) couples are separated by 170 mV [89], Both the MoVI/Mov and... 

Shown in Figures 5-7 are the redox pathways for xanthine oxidase, sulfite oxidase, and nitrate reductase (assimilatory and respiratory), respectively. These schemes address the electron and proton (hydron) flows. The action of the molyb-doenzymes is conceptually similar to that of electrochemical cells in which half reactions occur at different electrodes. In the enzymes, the half reactions occur at different prosthetic groups and intraprotein (internal) electron transfer allows the reactions to be coupled (i.e., the circuit to be completed). In essence, this is the modus operandi of these enzymes, which must be determined before intimate mechanistic considerations are seriously addressed. 

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