Redesigning the Blue Copper Azurin into a Redox-Active Mononuclear Nonheme Iron Protein: Preparation and Study of Fe(II)-M121E Azurin
2014
Liu, Jing | Meier, Katlyn K. | Tian, Shiliang | Zhang, Jun-long | Guo, Hongchao | Schulz, Charles E. | Robinson, Howard | Nilges, Mark J. | Münck, Eckard | Lu, Yi
Much progress has been made in designing heme and dinuclear nonheme iron enzymes. In contrast, engineering mononuclear nonheme iron enzymes is lagging, even though these enzymes belong to a large class that catalyzes quite diverse reactions. Herein we report spectroscopic and X-ray crystallographic studies of Fe(II)-M121E azurin (Az), by replacing the axial Met121 and Cu(II) in wild-type azurin (wtAz) with Glu and Fe(II), respectively. In contrast to the redox inactive Fe(II)-wtAz, the Fe(II)-M121EAz mutant can be readily oxidized by Na₂IrCl₆, and interestingly, the protein exhibits superoxide scavenging activity. Mössbauer and EPR spectroscopies, along with X-ray structural comparisons, revealed similarities and differences between Fe(II)-M121EAz, Fe(II)-wtAz, and superoxide reductase (SOR) and allowed design of the second generation mutant, Fe(II)-M121EM44KAz, that exhibits increased superoxide scavenging activity by 2 orders of magnitude. This finding demonstrates the importance of noncovalent secondary coordination sphere interactions in fine-tuning enzymatic activity.
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