PrxQ B from Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a monomeric, thioredoxin-dependent and highly efficient fatty acid hydroperoxide reductase.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis ( M. tuberculosis ) is the intracellular bacterium responsible for tuberculosis disease (TD). Inside the phagosomes of activated macrophages, M. tuberculosis is exposed to cytotoxic hydroperoxides such as hydrogen peroxide, fatty acid hydroperoxides and peroxynitrite. Thus, the characterization of the bacterial antioxidant systems could facilitate novel drug developments. In this work, we characterized the product of the gene Rv1608c from M. tuberculosis, which according to sequence homology had been annotated as a putative peroxiredoxin of the peroxiredoxin Q subfamily (PrxQ B from M. tuberculosis or Mt PrxQ B). The protein has been reported to be essential for M. tuberculosis growth in cholesterol-rich medium. We demonstrated the M. tuberculosis thioredoxin B/C-dependent peroxidase activity of Mt PrxQ B, which acted as a two-cysteine peroxiredoxin that could function, although less efficiently, using a one-cysteine mechanism. Through steady-state and competition kinetic analysis, we proved that the net forward rate constant of Mt PrxQ B reaction was 3 orders of magnitude faster for fatty acid hydroperoxides than for hydrogen peroxide (3×10 6 vs 6×10 3 M − 1 s − 1 , respectively), while the rate constant of peroxynitrite reduction was (0.6−1.4) ×10 6 M − 1 s − 1 at pH 7.4. The enzyme lacked activity towards cholesterol hydroperoxides solubilized in sodium deoxycholate. Both thioredoxin B and C rapidly reduced the oxidized form of Mt PrxQ B, with rates constants of 0.5×10 6 and 1×10 6 M − 1 s − 1 , respectively. Our data indicated that Mt PrxQ B is monomeric in solution both under reduced and oxidized states. In spite of the similar hydrodynamic behavior the reduced and oxidized forms of the protein showed important structural differences that were reflected in the protein circular dichroism spectra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]