Respiration-linked proton flux in Wolinella succinogenes during reduction of N-oxides

Cell biology and molecular basis of denitrification

Denitrification is a distinct means of energy conservation, making use of N oxides as terminal electron acceptors for cellular bioenergetics under anaerobic, microaerophilic, and occasionally aerobic conditions. The process is an essential branch of the global N cycle, reversing dinitrogen fixation, and is associated with chemolithotrophic, phototrophic, diazotrophic, or organotrophic metabolism but generally not with obligately anaerobic life. Discovered more than a century ago and believed to be exclusively a bacterial trait, denitrification has now been found in halophilic and hyperthermophilic archaea and in the mitochondria of fungi, raising evolutionarily intriguing vistas. Important advances in the biochemical characterization of denitrification and the underlying genetics have been achieved with Pseudomonas stutzeri, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Paracoccus denitrificans, Ralstonia eutropha, and Rhodobacter sphaeroides. Pseudomonads represent one of the largest assemblies of the denitrifying bacteria within a single genus, favoring their use as model organisms. Around 50 genes are required within a single bacterium to encode the core structures of the denitrification apparatus. Much of the denitrification process of gram-negative bacteria has been found confined to the periplasm, whereas the topology and enzymology of the gram-positive bacteria are less well established. The activation and enzymatic transformation of N oxides is based on the redox chemistry of Fe, Cu, and Mo. Biochemical breakthroughs have included the X-ray structures of the two types of respiratory nitrite reductases and the isolation of the novel enzymes nitric oxide reductase and nitrous oxide reductase, as well as their structural characterization by indirect spectroscopic means. This revealed unexpected relationships among denitrification enzymes and respiratory oxygen reductases. Denitrification is intimately related to fundamental cellular processes that include primary and secondary transport, protein translocation, cytochrome c biogenesis, anaerobic gene regulation, metalloprotein assembly, and the biosynthesis of the cofactors molybdopterin and heme D1. An important class of regulators for the anaerobic expression of the denitrification apparatus are transcription factors of the greater FNR family. Nitrate and nitric oxide, in addition to being respiratory substrates, have been identified as signaling molecules for the induction of distinct N oxide-metabolizing enzymes.

Detergent inhibition of nitric-oxide reductase activity

Gas chromatography revealed that exposure of extracts of the denitrifiers 'Achromobacter cycloclastes', Paracoccus denitrificans, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Pseudomonas perfectomarina to Triton X-100 inhibited reduction of NO to N2O, and thus concomitantly inhibited reduction of NO2- to N2O. After exposure of extracts to Triton X-100, the ratio of H+ consumed to NO2- added decreased from approx. 2.0 (for untreated extracts) to approx. 1.5, which indicated that NO2- was reduced to NO by the treated extracts. Addition of a CHAPS-soluble extract (devoid of nitrite reductase activity but rich in nitric-oxide reductase activity) to the Triton X-100-treated extract of P. denitrificans restored capacity for reduction of NO2- on to N2O. Exposure to either the NO that accumulated from reduction of NO2- or to enthetic NO transiently inhibited rates of NO2- reduction in Triton X-100-treated extracts. Use of an Oxides of Nitrogen analyzer indicated that only 5-33% of NO2- reduced by untreated extracts appeared in the stripping gas as NO, whereas 80-95% of NO2- reduced by Triton X-100-treated extracts was recovered as NO.