Reductive reactions molybdenum-containing enzymes

FIGURE 1. Examples of reactions catalyzed by molybdenum containing enzymes. From top to bottom, hydroxylation of xanthine, hydroxylation of acetaldehyde, dehydrogenation of carbon monoxide, transhydroxylation of pyrogallol, oxidation of sulfite, reduction of nitrate, reduction of dimethylsulfoxide, oxidation of formate, reduction of polysulfide and formation of formylmethanofuran. 

Aldehyde oxidases (AO) are also molybdenum-containing enzymes that, like XO, exist as homodimers of 300 Kdaltons. It is presumed that they behave mechanistically similarly to XO. Both AO and XO can mediate reductive reactions through the transfer of electrons from FADH2 to oxidized xenobiotic. For example, zonisamide can be reduced by AO to 2-sulfamoylacetylphenol. 

In recent years. X-ray crystallography has led to the discovery of several novel metalloclusters of complex architecture that contain at least four metal ions (4, 5). They represent the active site of several redox enzymes that contain molybdenum, nickel, and manganese, as well as the most commonly encountered iron and copper (Fig. 6). These enzymes are extremely specialized in the oxidation or reduction reactions of the smallest molecules and anions (which include N2, CO, and H2). A common feature of such clusters is that they are present in enzymes as part of a more extensive electron transfer chain that involves a series of... 

All known molybdenum- and tungsten-containing enzymes catalyse reduction-oxidation reactions. The oxidation state of the metal centre can vary between iv, v and vi, hence one- and two-electron transfer reaction steps are possible. In Nature two different ways exist to control the catalytic power and the oxidation state of the metal centre of molybdenum enzymes. One is a mononuclear metal centre, which consists of sulfur and oxygen atoms as coordination sphere around molybdenum and the other is the multinuclear metal centre in which the molybdenum is part of an iron-sulfur cluster, which is only known for bacterial nitroge-nase enzymes. ... 

The first indication of an essential metabolic role for molybdenum was obtained in 1953, when it was discovered that xanthine oxidase, important in purine metabolism, was a metalloenzyme containing molybdenum. Subsequently the element was shown to be a component of two other enzymes, aldehyde oxidase and sulphite oxidase. The biological functions of molybdenum, apart from its reactions with copper (see p. 123), are concerned with the formation and activities of these three enzymes. In addition to being a component of xanthine oxidase, molybdenum participates in the reaction of the enzyme with cytochrome C and also facilitates the reduction of cytochrome C by aldehyde oxidase. 

Metallo-Flavoproteins. As was mentioned in the case of cytochrome reductase, enzymes are known that contain metal cofactors in addition to flavin. These are called metallo-flavoproteins. The presence of metals introduces complexity into the reaction, since the metals involved, iron, molybdenum, copper, and manganese, all exist in at least two valence states and can participate in oxidation-reduction reactions. The enzymes known to be metallo-flavoproteins include xanthine oxidase, aldehyde oxidase, nitrate reductase, succinic dehydrogenase, fatty acyl CoA dehydrogenases, hydrogenase, and cytochrome reductases. Before these are discussed in detail some physical properties of flavin will be presented. 

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. 

Xanthine oxidase (XO) was the first enzyme studied from the family of enzymes now known as the molybdenum hydroxylases (HiUe 1999). XO, which catalyzes the hydroxylation of xanthine to uric acid is abundant in cow s milk and contains several cofactors, including FAD, two Fe-S centers, and a molybdenum cofactor, all of which are required for activity (Massey and Harris 1997). Purified XO has been shown to use xanthine, hypoxan-thine, and several aldehydes as substrates in the reduction of methylene blue (Booth 1938), used as an electron acceptor. Early studies also noted that cyanide was inhibitory but could only inactivate XO during preincubation, not during the reaction with xanthine (Dixon 1927). The target of cyanide inactivation was identified to be a labile sulfur atom, termed the cyanolyzable sulfur (Wahl and Rajagopalan 1982), which is also required for enzyme activity. 

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