Recent Discoveries in Mono- and Dinuclear Nonheme Iron Enzymes: Emerging Mechanisms and Catalytic Strategies.
Wang K, Yao A, Chang WC
Natural Product Biosynthesis
PubMedThese iron enzymes are responsible for making the natural compounds that give plants their flavors, scents, and medicinal properties — understanding them opens doors to growing more nutritious crops and developing new medicines from plants.
Inside cells, tiny protein machines called enzymes use iron atoms to grab oxygen from the air and use it to build or break apart molecules. Plants rely on these iron-based enzymes to produce everything from the aroma in herbs to protective chemicals that fight off insects. This research takes stock of how these enzymes work, revealing that nature has invented several clever ways to do the same job — a finding that could help scientists engineer plants with better flavors, stronger defenses, or the ability to clean up pollution.
Key Findings
Two major structural 'scaffolds' — the 2-His-1-carboxylate facial triad and alternative 3-His or 4-His motifs — allow nonheme iron enzymes to activate oxygen through distinct chemical pathways, greatly expanding the range of reactions they can catalyze.
Dinuclear (two-iron) enzyme families use cooperative metal-metal interactions to achieve multi-electron oxidation chemistry that single-iron enzymes cannot, enabling more complex transformations in natural product biosynthesis.
Newly characterized enzyme structures in natural product biosynthetic pathways show non-standard metal coordination and unexpected substrate selectivity, revealing that evolution has repeatedly repurposed this enzyme family for novel chemistry.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists have reviewed how a family of iron-containing enzymes found in living organisms — including plants — activate oxygen to drive chemical reactions essential for growth, defense, and the breakdown of natural compounds. These enzymes use surprisingly diverse structural tricks to do the same fundamental job.
Abstract Preview
Nonheme iron enzymes encompass one of the most chemically versatile families of metalloenzymes, catalyzing an extraordinary range of oxidative transformations essential to metabolism, natural produ...
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