Enzyme Kinetics of Organic Contaminant Oxygenations

Enzymatic oxygenations initiate biodegradation processes of many organic soil and water contaminants. Even though many biochemical aspects of oxygenation reactions are well-known, quantifying rates of oxidative contaminant removal as well as the extent of oxygenation remains a major challenge. Because enzymes use different strategies to activate O2, reactions leading to substrate oxygenation are not necessarily limiting the rate of contaminant removal. Moreover, oxygenases react along unproductive pathways without substrate metabolism leading to O2 uncoupling. Here, we identify the critical features of the catalytic cycles of selected oxygenases that determine rates and extents of biodegradation. We focus most specifically on Rieske dioxygenases, a subfamily of mononuclear non-heme ferrous iron oxygenases, because of their ability to hydroxylate unactivated aromatic structures and thus initiate the transformation of the most persistent organic contaminants. We illustrate that the rate-determining steps in their catalytic cycles range from O2 activation to substrate hydroxylation, depending on the extent of O–O cleavage that is required for generating the reactive Fe-oxygen species. The extent of O2 uncoupling, on the other hand, is highly substrate-specific and potentially modulated by adaptive responses to oxidative stress. Understanding the kinetic mechanisms of oxygenases will be key to assess organic contaminant biotransformation quantitatively.

Mechanism of O2 activation and substrate hydroxylation in noncoupled binuclear copper monooxygenases

Peptidylglycine α-hydroxylating monooxygenase (PHM) and dopamine β-monooxygenase (DβM) are copper-dependent enzymes that are vital for neurotransmitter regulation and hormone biosynthesis. These enzymes feature a unique active site consisting of two spatially separated (by 11 Å in PHM) and magnetically noncoupled copper centers that enables 1e– activation of O2 for hydrogen atom abstraction (HAA) of substrate C–H bonds and subsequent hydroxylation. Although the structures of the resting enzymes are known, details of the hydroxylation mechanism and timing of long-range electron transfer (ET) are not clear. This study presents density-functional calculations of the full reaction coordinate, which demonstrate: (i) the importance of the end-on coordination of superoxide to Cu for HAA along the triplet spin surface; (ii) substrate radical rebound to a CuII hydroperoxide favors the proximal, nonprotonated oxygen; and (iii) long-range ET can only occur at a late step with a large driving force, which serves to inhibit deleterious Fenton chemistry. The large inner-sphere reorganization energy at the ET site is used as a control mechanism to arrest premature ET and dictate the correct timing of ET.