Borovik, A.S.; Hendrich, M.P.; Moënne-Loccoz, P.

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 2384-2393, 10.1021/jacs.0c12564

Dinuclear iron centers with a bridging hydroxido or oxido ligand form active sites within a variety of metalloproteins. A key feature of these sites is the ability of the protein to control the structures around the Fe centers, which leads to entatic states that are essential for function. To simulate this controlled environment, artificial proteins have been engineered using biotin–streptavidin (Sav) technology in which Fe complexes from adjacent subunits can assemble to form [FeIII–(μ-OH)–FeIII] cores. The assembly process is promoted by the site-specific localization of the Fe complexes within a subunit through the designed mutation of a tyrosinate side chain to coordinate the Fe centers. An important outcome is that the Sav host can regulate the Fe···Fe separation, which is known to be important for function in natural metalloproteins. Spectroscopic and structural studies from X-ray diffraction methods revealed uncommonly long Fe···Fe separations that change by less than 0.3 Å upon the binding of additional bridging ligands. The structural constraints imposed by the protein host on the di-Fe cores are unique and create examples of active sites having entatic states within engineered artificial metalloproteins.

Albrecht, M.; Paradisi, F.

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 130, 10837-10842, 10.1002/ange.201807168

Im Tausch gegen NHC: Die Einfügung eines N‐heterocyclischen Carbenliganden (grün/blau) als Ersatz für His in das aktive Zentrum des Redoxenzyms Azurin rekonstituiert das T1‐Kupferzentrum. Der resultierende Komplex ist spektroskopisch kaum unterscheidbar von der N‐Bindung von His oder N‐Methylimidazol, senkt aber signifikant das Reduktionspotential des Kupferzentrums und erleichtert dadurch Elektronentransferprozesse.

Lubitz, W.; Reijerse, E.

Biochemistry 2015, 54, 1474-1483, 10.1021/bi501391d

[FeFe]-hydrogenases are to date the only enzymes for which it has been demonstrated that the native inorganic binuclear cofactor of the active site Fe2(adt)(CO)3(CN)2 (adt = azadithiolate = [S-CH2-NH-CH2-S]2–) can be synthesized on the laboratory bench and subsequently inserted into the unmaturated enzyme to yield fully functional holo-enzyme (Berggren, G. et al. (2013) Nature 499, 66–70; Esselborn, J. et al. (2013) Nat. Chem. Biol. 9, 607–610). In the current study, we exploit this procedure to introduce non-native cofactors into the enzyme. Mimics of the binuclear subcluster with a modified bridging dithiolate ligand (thiodithiolate, N-methylazadithiolate, dimethyl-azadithiolate) and three variants containing only one CN– ligand were inserted into the active site of the enzyme. We investigated the activity of these variants for hydrogen oxidation as well as proton reduction and their structural accommodation within the active site was analyzed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Interestingly, the monocyanide variant with the azadithiolate bridge showed ∼50% of the native enzyme activity. This would suggest that the CN– ligands are not essential for catalytic activity, but rather serve to anchor the binuclear subsite inside the protein pocket through hydrogen bonding. The inserted artificial cofactors with a propanedithiolate and an N-methylazadithiolate bridge as well as their monocyanide variants also showed residual activity. However, these activities were less than 1% of the native enzyme. Our findings indicate that even small changes in the dithiolate bridge of the binuclear subsite lead to a rather strong decrease of the catalytic activity. We conclude that both the Brønsted base function and the conformational flexibility of the native azadithiolate amine moiety are essential for the high catalytic activity of the native enzyme.