Half-reactions nitrogenase reaction

Table 9.5 Standard Apparent Reduction Potentials E n (in volts) at 298.15 K of Half-reactions in the Nitrogenase Reaction...

The effects of pH on the standard apparent reduction potentials of the half reactions involved in the nitrogenase reaction are shown in Table 9.5. The effects of pH on the apparent equilibrium constants of the reactions involved in the nitrogenase reaction as shown in Table 9.6. 

The substrate half-reactions are displayed in Tables I and II. In each case, a two-electron process seems to be involved. Only in nitro-genase are greater numbers of electrons transferred, and the discussion earlier in this paper summarizes the evidence that these processes occur in two-electron steps. The two-electron reaction of the molybdenum site never appears to be simply an electron transfer reaction. In the case of nitrogenase, each substrate takes up an equal (or greater) number of protons to form the product. In the other molybdenum enzymes, proton transfer and addition or removal of H20 are also required. In each case, however, there is at least one proton transferred in the same direction as the pair of electrons. These data, taken in conjunction with the EPR evidence for proton transfer from the substrate to the active site in xanthine oxidase, suggest that the molybdenum site in all the enzymes... 

Oxo Transfer Mechanisms. Except for nitrogenase, all substrate half-reactions involve the addition or removal of oxygen. The simplest manner of representing these reactions, involves the direct transfer of an oxygen atom to or from substrate, e.g., Reactions 13 and 14. Furthermore,... 

The experimentally established electron balance for the nitrogenase reaction is given by Eq. 60. The model reaction of Eq. 62a, rewritten as Eq. 63, does not require any electrons, and it uses only one-half of the D2 for HD formation. The other one-half remains bound in the N2D2 complex. 

The nitrogenase enzyme complex found in nitrogen-fixing bacteria catalyzes the production of ammonia from molecular nitrogen. The half-reaction of reduction (Figure 23.2a) is... 

Nitrogenase, as must now become clear, is a complex enzyme of two component proteins which requires ATP, a reductant, a reducible substrate, Mg " " as an activator, and an anaerobic environment to function. To this complexity must be added the difficulty that the component proteins have no enzymatic half reactions . There are, perhaps, four main questions to decide about the mechanism (1) the role(s) of the two component proteins (2) the role(s) of ATP (3) the nature of the active site(s) and (4) the mechanism of N2 reduction. Despite the complexities and difficulties mentioned above, progress in the last 15 years has partly answered all these questions. The Fe protein mediates an ATP-dependent electron transfer from the donor to the MoFe protein which contains the active site. MgATP binds and induces a conformational change in the Fe protein which lowers its redox potential. FeMoco, the molybdenum cofactor, which may be part of the active site of N2 reduction, has been isolated and partly characterized, while an intermediate in N2 reduction has recently been discovered (Thorneley ct al., 1978). The next part of this chapter describes the evidence for these claims. This evidence involves the noncatalytic reactions of the individual proteins, their... 

Fig. 9. The MoFe protein cycle of molybdenum nitrogenase. This cycle depicts a plausible sequence of events in the reduction of N2 to 2NH3 + H2. The scheme is based on well-characterized model chemistry (15, 105) and on the pre-steady-state kinetics of product formation by nitrogenase (102). The enzymic process has not been chsiracter-ized beyond M5 because the chemicals used to quench the reactions hydrolyze metal nitrides. As in Fig. 8, M represents an aji half of the MoFe protein. Subscripts 0-7 indicate the number of electrons trsmsferred to M from the Fe protein via the cycle of Fig. 8.

---