Ferredoxins 2-iron

Other electron transferases include the rubredoxin and ferredoxin iron-sulfur proteins, so named because they contain iron-sulfur clusters of various sizes. Rubredoxins are found in anaerobic bacteria and contain iron ligated to four cysteine sulfurs. Ferredoxins are found in plant chloroplasts and mammalian tissue and contain spin-coupled [2Fe-2S] clusters. Further discussion of rubredoxin and ferredoxin proteins can be found in Chapters 6 and 7 of reference 15, and cytochromes will be extensively discussed in Chapter 7 of this text. 

Ferredoxins, iron-sulfur proteins ferredoxin + le —> ferrodoxin,ed -0.36... 

If an enzyme binds a flavin radical much more tightly than the fully oxidized or reduced forms, reduction of the flavoprotein will take place in two one-electron steps. In such proteins the values of E° for the two steps may be widely separated. The best known examples are the small, low-potential electron-carrying proteins known as flavodoxins.266 269a These proteins, which carry electrons between pairs of other redox proteins, have a variety of functions in anaerobic and photosynthetic bacteria, cyanobacteria, and green algae. Their functions are similar to those of the ferredoxins, iron-sulfur proteins that are considered in Chapter 16. 

The second class of iron-containing proteins which have been well-studied by Mossbauer spectroscopy, and by other resonance techniques, are the iron-sulfur proteins. These molecules are also known by the name, ferredoxins. Iron-sulfur proteins in several varieties serve as electron-transport agents for processes in plants, bacteria, and mammals. Perhaps the most-studied physiological process involving the iron-sulfur proteins is the study of their role in photosynthesis. This subject has been extensively reviewed by Arnon 126,135), Hind and Olson 127), Hall and... 

Iron-sulphur clusters are the third type of the widely available electron-transfer sites in biology. They consist of iron ions surrounded by four sulphur ions, either thiolate groups from cysteine residues or inorganic sulphide ions. Regular clusters with one (rubredoxins), two, three, or four (ferredoxins) iron ions are known, as well as a number of more irregular clusters, also with other ligands than cysteine [112,181]. Their reduction potentials vary between -700 and +400 mV [112]. 

I Ferredoxin )( Ferredoxin ]( Iron-sulfur 1 ( V Reductase / J Protein J ... 

Arnon and his group have definitively established that ferredoxins (iron-sulfur proteins noted for their strongly electronegative redox potentials) are the primary electron acceptors in photosynthesis, and that they are essential electron carriers for the light-induced generation of reducing power and ATP formed in the processes of cyclic and non-c clic photophosphorylation. Reducing power—either reduced ferredoxin or reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotides, NAD(P)H—and ATP constitute the assimilatory power required for the further assimilation in the dark of carbon dioxide, nitrate and sulfate. ... 

Iron Sulfur Compounds. Many molecular compounds (18—20) are known in which iron is tetrahedraHy coordinated by a combination of thiolate and sulfide donors. Of the 10 or more stmcturaHy characterized classes of Fe—S compounds, the four shown in Figure 1 are known to occur in proteins. The mononuclear iron site REPLACE occurs in the one-iron bacterial electron-transfer protein mbredoxin. The [2Fe—2S] (10) and [4Fe—4S] (12) cubane stmctures are found in the 2-, 4-, and 8-iron ferredoxins, which are also electron-transfer proteins. The [3Fe—4S] voided cubane stmcture (11) has been found in some ferredoxins and in the inactive form of aconitase, the enzyme which catalyzes the stereospecific hydration—rehydration of citrate to isocitrate in the Krebs cycle. In addition, enzymes are known that contain either other types of iron sulfur clusters or iron sulfur clusters that include other metals. Examples include nitrogenase, which reduces N2 to NH at a MoFe Sg homocitrate cluster carbon monoxide dehydrogenase, which assembles acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) at a FeNiS site and hydrogenases, which catalyze the reversible reduction of protons to hydrogen gas. 

Nonrepetitive but well-defined structures of this type form many important features of enzyme active sites. In some cases, a particular arrangement of coil structure providing a specific type of functional site recurs in several functionally related proteins. The peptide loop that binds iron-sulfur clusters in both ferredoxin and high potential iron protein is one example. Another is the central loop portion of the E—F hand structure that binds a calcium ion in several calcium-binding proteins, including calmodulin, carp parvalbumin, troponin C, and the intestinal calcium-binding protein. This loop, shown in Figure 6.26, connects two short a-helices. The calcium ion nestles into the pocket formed by this structure. 

Figure 25.9 Some non-haem iron proteins (a) rubredoxin in which the single Fe is coordinated, almost tetra-hedrally, to 4 cysteine-sulfurs, (b) plant ferredoxin, [Fe2S2(S-Cys)4], (c) [Fe4S4(S-Cys)4] cube of bacterial ferredoxins. (This is in fact distorted, the Fe4 and S4 making up the two interpenetrating tetrahedra, of which the latter is larger than the former).

Although the redox potential of Rieske-type clusters is approximately 400 mV lower than that of Rieske clusters, it is 300 mV more positive than the redox potential of plant-type ferredoxins (approximately -400 mV). Multiple factors have been considered to be essential for the redox potential of iron sulfur proteins ... 

An iron sulfur-flavoprotein that transfers electrons to the ferredoxin, as in naphthalene dioxygenase (class III)... 

During the 1960s, research on proteins containing iron—sulfur clusters was closely related to the field of photosynthesis. Whereas the first ferredoxin, a 2[4Fe-4S] protein, was obtained in 1962 from the nonphotosynthetic bacterium Clostridium pasteurianum (1), in the same year, a plant-type [2Fe-2S] ferredoxin was isolated from spinach chloroplasts (2). Despite the fact that members of this latter class of protein have been reported for eubacteria and even archaebacteria (for a review, see Ref. (3)), the name plant-type ferredoxin is often used to denote this family of iron—sulfur proteins. The two decades... 

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