Oxidase , aerobic cytochrome

Cytochrome oxidase or cytochrome-a, is an example of this t3rpe of enzyme (see p. 120). It is highly specific for the transport of electrons from cytochrome-c to oxygen. The phenolases (see p. 123) are also aerobic transelectronases, transporting electrons from copper to oxygen. 

Figure 18.2 Summary of respiratory energy flows. Foods ate converted into the reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH), a strong reductant, which is the most reducing of the respiratory electron carriers (donors). Respiration can he based on a variety of terminal oxidants, such as O2, nitrate, or fumarate. Of those, O2 is the strongest, so that aerobic respiration extracts the largest amount of free energy from a given amount of food. In aerobic respiration, NADH is not oxidized directly by O2 rather, the reaction proceeds through intermediate electron carriers, such as the quinone/quinol couple and cytochrome c. The most efficient respiratory pathway is based on oxidation of ferrocytochrome c (Fe ) with O2 catalyzed by cytochrome c oxidase (CcO). Of the 550 mV difference between the standard potentials of c)Tochrome c and O2, CcO converts 450 mV into proton-motive force (see the text for further details).

The electron transport chain is vital to aerobic organisms. Interference with its action may be life threatening. Thus, cyanide and carbon monoxide bind to haem groups and inhibit the action of the enzyme cytochrome c oxidase, a protein complex that is effectively responsible for the terminal part of the electron transport sequence and the reduction of oxygen to water. 

Cyanide ion exerts an inhibitory action on certain metabolic enzyme systems, most notably cytochrome oxidase, the enzyme involved in the ultimate transfer of electrons to molecular oxygen. Because cytochrome oxidase is present in practically all cells that function under aerobic conditions, and because the cyanide ion diffuses easily to all parts of the body, cyanide quickly halts practically all cellular respiration. The venous blood of a patient dying of cyanide is bright red and resembles arterial blood because the tissues have not been able to utilize the oxygen brought to them. Cyanide intoxication produces lactic acidosis, the result of an increased rate of glycolysis and production of lactic acid. ... 

Looking at the other end of the respiratory chain, Otto WarburgC/d noted in 1908 that all aerobic cells contain iron. Moreover, iron-containing charcoal prepared from blood catalyzed nonenzymatic oxidation of many substances, but iron-free charcoal prepared from cane sugar did not. Cyanide was found to inhibit tissue respiration at low concentrations similar to those needed to inhibit nonenzymatic catalysis by iron salts. On the basis of these investigations, Warburg proposed in 1925 that aerobic cells contain an iron-based Atmungsferment (respiration enzyme), which was later called cytochrome oxidase. It was inhibited by carbon monoxide. 

The biochemistry of the aerobic carbon monoxide-oxidizing bacteria is of considerable interest in that the respiratory chain is not sensitive to inhibition by CO, due, it is suggested, to the presence of a CO-insensitive o-type cytochrome functioning as a terminal oxidase.1037... 

In juvenile liver fluke and miracidia, a respiratory chain up to cytochrome c oxidase is active and all evidence obtained so far indicates that in F. hepatica at least this electron-transport chain is not different from the classical one present in mammalian mitochondria (Figs 20.1 and 20.2). In the aerobically functioning stages, electrons are transferred from NADH and succinate to ubiquinone via complex I and II of the respiratory chain, respectively. Subsequently, these electrons are transferred from the formed ubiquinol to oxygen via the complexes III and IV of the respiratory chain. 

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