Search

Nuclear inelastic scattering of 57Fe labeled [NiFe] hydrogenase is shown to give information on different states of the enzyme. It was thus possible to detect and assign FeCO and FeCN bending and stretching vibrations of the active site outside the spectral range of the FeS cluster normal modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blick ins Zentrum: Die Methode der inelastischen kernresonanten Streuung (NRVS) wurde genutzt, um 57Fe ‐ markierte [NiFe] ‐ Hydrogenase in unterschiedlichen Zuständen des Enzyms zu untersuchen. Damit gelang es, die Fe ‐ CO ‐ und Fe ‐ CN ‐ Beuge ‐ und ‐ Streckschwingung außerhalb des Spektralbereichs der Normalmoden der Fe ‐ S ‐ Cluster zu detektieren und zuzuordnen (siehe Spektrum). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogenases are enzymes found in all domains of life that catalyze a remarkably simple chemistry, the reversible oxidation of molecular hydrogen to protons and electrons. In order to perform this chemistry, cells have evolved, several different times, intricate organometal complexes built around a binuclear Ni-Fe or Fe-Fe center, with bound CO and CN− groups, as well as multiple FeS centers. These complicated enzymes have been an area of intense study for many decades, with interest peaking on the occasions of major increases in national energy costs. Interest in biologically generated hydrogen as a potential substitute for fossil fuels is again at the forefront, and the new tools of the postgenomic world available for manipulating these enzymes make it a truly viable possibility. Hydrogenases from hyperthermophilic microorganisms such as Pyrococcus furiosus and Thermotoga maritima, with optimal growth temperatures near 100°C, are of particular interest and promise for elucidating and manipulating these enzymatic mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural and functional characterization of the entire protein complement (the proteome) of an organism can provide an infrastructure upon which questions about biological pathways and systems biology can be framed. The technology necessary to perform this proteome-level structural and functional characterization is under development in numerous structural genomics and functional genomics initiatives. Given the ubiquity of metal active sites in a proteome, it seems appropriate to ask whether comprehensive local structural characterization of metal sites within a proteome (metalloproteomics) is either a valid or obtainable goal. With a proteome-wide knowledge of the active-site structures of all metalloproteins, one could start to ask how metal insertion, cluster assembly and metalloprotein expression are affected by growth conditions or developmental status etc. High-throughput X-ray absorption spectroscopy (HTXAS) is being developed as a technology for investigating the metalloproteome. In creating a pipeline from genome to metalloproteome, several bottlenecks to high-throughput determination of metal-site structures must be overcome. For example, automation of arraying small samples for XAS examination must be invented, automation of rapid data collection of multiple low-volume low-concentration samples must be developed, automation of data reduction and analysis must be perfected. Discussed here are the promises and the pitfalls of HTXAS development, including the results of initial feasibility experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rubredoxin from the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus maintains its native structure at high temperatures (373 K). In order to investigate the role of hydrogen bonding, hydration and chain dynamics in this thermostability, wavelength-resolved Laue neutron diffraction data have been collected from the W3Y single mutant (Trp3→Tyr3) on the spallation neutron protein crystallography station (PCS) at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. Data were measured at room temperature from nine crystal settings, each of approximately 12 h duration. The total data-measurement period was less than 5 d from a single crystal that had undergone H[sub2]/D[sub2]O exchange. The nominal resolution of the data is 2.1 Å. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The active site of [NiFe] hydrogenase is an excellent catalyst for hydrogen conversion with an intriguing ability to recover from exposure to dioxygen. In their Communication on page 724 ff., W. Lubitz, S. P. Cramer, and co‐workers use the synchrotron technique of nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy to identify normal modes associated with active‐site FeCN and FeCO motion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Das aktive Zentrum der [NiFe] ‐ Hydrogenase ist ein exzellenter Katalysator der Wasserstoffumsetzung mit der faszinierenden Fähigkeit, sich nach Sauerstoffexposition zurückzubilden. W. Lubitz, S. P. Cramer et al. nutzen in ihrer Zuschrift auf S. 752 ff. die Synchrotrontechnik der kernresonanten inelastischen Streuung, um Normalmoden der Fe ‐ CN ‐ und Fe ‐ CO ‐ Bewegung im aktiven Zentrum zu identifizieren. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothetical protein PF0899 is a 95-residue peptide from the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus that represents a gene family with six members. P. furiosus ORF PF0899 has been cloned, expressed and crystallized and its structure has been determined by the Southeast Collaboratory for Structural Genomics (http://www.secsg.org). The structure was solved using the SCA2Structure pipeline from multiple data sets and has been refined to 1.85 A against the highest resolution data set collected (a presumed gold derivative), with a crystallographic R factor of 21.0% and R(free) of 24.0%. The refined structure shows some structural similarity to a wedge-shaped domain observed in the structure of the major capsid protein from bacteriophage HK97, suggesting that PF0899 may be a structural protein.

A neutron diffraction study has been carried out at 1.6 A resolution on a mutant rubredoxin from Pyrococcus furiosus using the BIX-3 single-crystal diffractometer at the JRR-3 reactor of the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. In order to study the unusual thermostability of rubredoxin from P. furiosus (an organism that grows optimally at 373 K), the hydrogen-bonding patterns were compared between the wild-type protein and a 'triple-mutant' variant. In this mutant protein, three residues were changed (Trp3-->Tyr3, Ile23-->Val23, Leu32-->Ile32) so that they are identical to those in a mesophilic rubredoxin from Clostridium pasteurianum. In the present study, some minor changes were found between the wild-type and mutant proteins in the hydrogen-bonding patterns of the Trp3/Tyr3 region. In this investigation, the H/D-exchange ratios in the protein were also studied. Because the target protein was soaked in D2O during the crystallization procedure, most of the N-H and O-H bonds have become deuterated, while essentially all of the C-H bonds have not. In particular, the H/D-exchange pattern of the N-H amide bonds of the protein backbone is of interest because it may contain some indirect information about the mechanism of unfolding of this small protein. The results are in broad agreement with those from solution NMR studies, which suggest that the backbone amide bonds near the four Cys residues of the FeS4 redox center are most resistant to H/D exchange. Finally, the detailed geometries of the water molecules of hydration around the rubredoxin molecule are also reported. The 1.6 A resolution of the present neutron structure determination has revealed a more detailed picture than previously available of some portions of the water structure, including ordered and disordered O-D bonds. Crystallographic details: space group P2(1)2(1)2(1) (orthorhombic), unit-cell parameters a = 34.48, b = 35.70, c = 43.16 A; final agreement factors R = 0.196 and Rfree = 0.230 for 19,384 observed and 6548 unique neutron reflections collected at room temperature; crystal size 4 mm3; a total of 423 non-H atoms, 290 H atoms and 88 D atoms were located in this study.