Laccases active site

Laccase active site with proposed mode of substrate / Intermediate binding... 

Laccases (p-diphenol O2 oxidoreductase EC 1.10.3.2) catalyze the oxidation of p-diphenols with the concurrent reduction of dioxygen to water. However, the actual substrate specificities of laccases are often quite broad and vary with the source of the enzyme [116,117]. Laccases are members of the blue copper oxidase enzyme family. Members of this family have four cupric (Cu +) ions where each of the known magnetic species (type 1, type 2, and type 3) is associated with a single polypeptide chain. In the blue copper oxidases the Cu + domain is highly conserved and, for some time, the crystallographic structure of ascorbate oxidase, another member of this class of enzymes, has provided a good model for the structure of the laccase active site [124,125]. The crystal structure of the Type-2 Cu depleted laccase from Coprinus cinereus at 2.2. A resolution has also been elucidated [126]. 

The electrochemical results provide a diagnostic measure to illustrate that MET works efficientiy on these redox materials. However, it provides neither mechanistic insight into the ORR process nor structural informalion in regard to the laccase active site. In this respect, in situ A/t-XANES provides a useM tool to consider in parallel with experimental data to elucidate information on active site transformations during the reaction, specifically the Ox binding site at the TNC. 

Figure 17.3 Anatomy of a redox enzyme representation of the X-ray crystallographic structure of Trametes versicolor laccase III (PDB file IKYA) [Bertrand et al., 2002]. The protein is represented in green lines and the Cu atoms are shown as gold spheres. Sugar moieties attached to the surface of the protein are shown in red. A molecule of 2,5-xyhdine that co-crystallized with the protein (shown in stick form in elemental colors) is thought to occupy the broad-specificity hydrophobic binding pocket where organic substrates ate oxidized by the enzyme. Electrons from substrate oxidation are passed to the mononuclear blue Cu center and then to the trinuclear Cu active site where O2 is reduced to H2O. (See color insert.)...

Catalytic reduction of oxygen directly to water, while not as yet possible with traditional catalyst technology at neutral pH, is achieved with some biocatalysts, particularly by enzymes with multi-copper active sites such as the laccases, ceruloplasmins, ascorbate oxidase and bilirubin oxidases. The first report on the use of a biocatalyst... 

Laccase was first isolated by Yoshida in 1883 [43] from tree lacquer of Rhus ver-nicifera. Laccases can thus be classified according to their source plant, fungal or, more recently, bacterial or insect [44], The laccase enzyme active site contains four copper ions classified into three types based upon their geometry and coordinating ligands, denoted... 

Different chemical environments surrounding the T1 copper result in different redox potentials. Fungal laccases demonstrate the highest potential, close to the equilibrium potential of oxygen reduction in their respective pH regions (see Table 1). Laccases, however, are anion sensitive, with deactivation involving dissociation of T2 copper from the active site of the enzyme. Alternative copper oxidases such as bilirubin oxidase and ceruloplasmin ° ... 

In order to investigate the active sites of these proteins, laccases I and III were subjected to ESR (electron spin resonance) spectroscopic analysis. The ESR spectra shown in Figure 5 indicate clear differences in peaks 2 and 6 which support the concept that the copper atoms in laccases I and III have different conformations in each molecule. Furthermore, immunological similarity between laccases I and III was also investigated. Antibody specific for laccase III was prepared from rabbit serum by conventional methods. When applied to Ouchterlony diffusion plates containing laccase I, no precipitation lines developed (Figure 6). This result showed that there were no conserved epitopes on the surfaces laccases I and III. 

Figure 21. Comparison of the spectroscopically effective models for azide binding at the blnuclear copper active site in hemocyanln and the trlnuclear copper cluster site in laccase.

The oxidized T1 site In laccase Is spectroscopically similar to that of plastocyanin and azurln. Indicating that exogenous ligands can coordinate only to the T2 and T3 coppers at the native active site, (see Splra, D.J. Co, M.S. Solomon, E.I. Hodgson, K.O. Blochem. Blophys. Res. Commun. 1983, 112, 746.)... 

Usually, these metalloproteins contain both type 2 and type 3 copper centers, together forming a triangular-shaped trinuclear active site, such as found in laccase (polyphenol oxidase) [38-41] and ascorbate oxidase (3) [42]. Recent evidence for a related arrangement has been reported for the enzyme particulate methane monooxygenase as well [43], but in this case the Cu Cu distance of the type 2 subunit (2.6 A) appears to be unusually short and the third Cu ion is located far from the dinuclear site. 

The blue oxidases contain these three types of copper together The stoichiometry is straightforward with laccase which contains one type-1 and one type-2 copper, and one type-3 dimeric copper site . One would expect two laccase-like sites in ascorbate oxidase and in ceruloplasmin, but the presence of respectively 3 and 1 and 1 and 3 type-1 and type-2 copper atoms has been deduced. Ceruloplasmin shows oxidase activities towards different substrates, like Fe (ferroxidase) and aromatic amines. It plays, moreover, an active role in the transport of copper With the proper precautions against the action of proteinases it can be isolated as a single polypeptide chain... 

The phenomenon of bioelectrical catalysis with direct electron transfer from electrode to enzyme active site was primarily observed in the study of electrochemical oxygen reduction in the presence of a copper-containing oxidase - laccase, adsorbed on electrodes of different origins. This work was developed with peroxidase and hydrogenase application as the working components [2],... 

Some proteins contain more than one copper site, and are therefore among the most complicated and least understood of all. The active site known as type 4 is usually composed of a type 2 and a type 3 active site, together forming a trinuclear cluster. In some cases, such proteins also contain at least one type 1 site and are in this case termed multicopper oxidases, or blue oxidases [3], Representatives of this class are laccase (polyphenol oxidase) [7-9], ascorbate oxidase (Figure 5.Id) [10], and ceruloplasmin [11], which catalyze a range of organic oxidation reactions. 

The low-temperature MCD and absorption titration studies (Figure 10) have determined that azide binds to both the type 2 and type 3 centers with similar binding constants. A series of chemical perturbations and stoichiometry studies have shown that these effects are associated with the same azide. This demonstrates that one N3 bridges between the type 2 and type 3 centers in laccase. These and other results from MCD spectroscopy first defined the presence of a trinuclear copper cluster active site in biology (89). At higher azide concentration, a second azide binds to the trinuclear site in laccase. Messerschmidt et al. have determined from X-ray crystallography that a trinuclear copper cluster site is also present in ascorbate oxidase (87, 92) and have obtained a crystal structure for a two-azide-bound derivative (87). It appears that some differences exist between the two-azide-bound laccase and ascorbate oxidase derivatives, and it will be important to spectroscopically correlate between these sites. 

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