The Importance of the Long Type 1 Copper‐Binding Loop of Nitrite Reductase for Structure and Function

Designing Artificial Metalloenzymes by Tuning of the Environment beyond the Primary Coordination Sphere

Metalloenzymes catalyze a variety of reactions using a limited number of natural amino acids and metallocofactors. Therefore, the environment beyond the primary coordination sphere must play an important role in both conferring and tuning their phenomenal catalytic properties, enabling active sites with otherwise similar primary coordination environments to perform a diverse array of biological functions. However, since the interactions beyond the primary coordination sphere are numerous and weak, it has been difficult to pinpoint structural features responsible for the tuning of activities of native enzymes. Designing artificial metalloenzymes (ArMs) offers an excellent basis to elucidate the roles of these interactions and to further develop practical biological catalysts. In this review, we highlight how the secondary coordination spheres of ArMs influence metal binding and catalysis, with particular focus on the use of native protein scaffolds as templates for the design of ArMs by either rational design aided by computational modeling, directed evolution, or a combination of both approaches. In describing successes in designing heme, nonheme Fe, and Cu metalloenzymes, heteronuclear metalloenzymes containing heme, and those ArMs containing other metal centers (including those with non-native metal ions and metallocofactors), we have summarized insights gained on how careful controls of the interactions in the secondary coordination sphere, including hydrophobic and hydrogen bonding interactions, allow the generation and tuning of these respective systems to approach, rival, and, in a few cases, exceed those of native enzymes. We have also provided an outlook on the remaining challenges in the field and future directions that will allow for a deeper understanding of the secondary coordination sphere a deeper understanding of the secondary coordintion sphere to be gained, and in turn to guide the design of a broader and more efficient variety of ArMs.

Engineering a bifunctional copper site in the cupredoxin fold by loop-directed mutagenesis

Copper sites in proteins are designed to perform either electron transfer or redox catalysis. Type 1 and CuA sites are electron transfer hubs bound to a rigid protein fold that prevents binding of exogenous ligands and side reactions. Here we report the engineering of two Type 1 sites by loop-directed mutagenesis within a CuA scaffold with unique electronic structures and functional features. A copper-thioether axial bond shorter than the copper-thiolate bond is responsible for the electronic structure features, in contrast to all other natural or chimeric sites where the copper thiolate bond is short. These sites display highly unusual features, such as: (1) a high reduction potential despite a strong interaction with the axial ligand, which we attribute to changes in the hydrogen bond network and (2) the ability to bind exogenous ligands such as imidazole and azide. This strategy widens the possibility of using natural protein scaffolds with functional features not present in nature.

Engineering the metal-binding loop at a type 1 copper center by circular permutation

Circular permutation of the cupredoxin azurin creates a break on the metal binding loop, highlighting the loop's flexibility.

Active site loop dictates the thermodynamics of reduction and ligand protonation in cupredoxins

The thermodynamics of reduction and His ligand protonation have been determined for a range of loop-contraction variants of the electron transferring type 1 copper protein azurin (AZ). For AZPC, in which the native C-terminal loop containing the Cys, His and Met ligands has been replaced with the shorter sequence from plastocyanin (PC) and AZAMI, in which the even shorter amicyanin (AMI) loop has been inserted, the thermodynamics of reduction match those of the protein whose loop has been introduced which are different to the values for AZ. The enthalpic contribution to His ligand protonation, which is not observed in AZ, is similar in AZAMI and AMI. The thermodynamics of this process in AZPC are more dissimilar to those for PC. In the case of AZAMI-F, a variant possessing the (non natural) minimal loop that can bind a type 1 copper site, the reduction thermodynamics are intermediate between those of AZPC and AZAMI, whilst the thermodynamic data for His ligand protonation are very similar to those for AMI. The results for AZAMI and AZPC are primarily due to protein based enthalpic effects related to the interaction of the metal with permanent protein dipoles from the loop, and to the decreased loop length which favors His ligand protonation in the cuprous proteins. Entropic factors related to loop flexibility have little influence because of constraints imposed by metal coordination and the fact that the introduced loops pack well against the AZ scaffold. Thus, the host scaffold in general plays a minor thermodynamic role in both processes, although for AZAMI-F differences in the first and second coordination spheres influence the thermodynamics of reduction.