Genetically encoded catalysts for non-natural chemical reactions will open new routes to sustainable production of chemicals. We designed a unique serine-heme ligated cytochrome “P411” that catalyzes efficient and selective carbene transfers from diazoesters to olefins in intact Escherichia coli cells. The mutation C400S in cytochrome P450BM3 gives a signature ferrous-CO Soret peak at 411 nm, abolishes monooxygenation activity, raises the resting state FeIII/II reduction potential, and significantly improves NAD(P)H-driven cyclopropanation activity.

Zinc dipyrrin complexes with two identical dipyrrin ligands absorb strongly at 450–550 nm and exhibit high fluorescence quantum yields in nonpolar solvents (e.g., 0.16–0.66 in cyclohexane) and weak to nonexistent emission in polar solvents (i.e., <10–3, in acetonitrile). The low quantum efficiencies in polar solvents are attributed to the formation of a nonemissive symmetry-breaking charge transfer (SBCT) state, which is not formed in nonpolar solvents. Analysis using ultrafast spectroscopy shows that in polar solvents the singlet excited state relaxes to the SBCT state in 1.0–5.5 ps and then decays via recombination to the triplet or ground states in 0.9–3.3 ns. In the weakly polar solvent toluene, the equilibrium between a localized excited state and the charge transfer state is established in 11–22 ps.

Biological redox machines require efficient transfer of electrons and holes for function. Reactions involving multiple tunneling steps, termed “hopping,” often promote charge separation within and between proteins that is essential for energy storage and conversion. Here we show how semiclassical electron transfer theory can be extended to include hopping reactions: graphical representations (called hopping maps) of the dependence of calculated two-step reaction rate constants on driving force are employed to account for flow in a rhenium-labeled azurin mutant as well as in two structurally characterized redox enzymes, DNA photolyase and MauG. Analysis of the 35 Å radical propagation in ribonucleotide reductases using hopping maps shows that all tyrosines and tryptophans on the radical pathway likely are involved in function. We suggest that hopping maps can facilitate the design and construction of artificial photosynthetic systems for the production of fuels and other chemicals.

High-valent iron-oxo species are thought to be intermediates in the catalytic cycles of oxygenases and peroxidases. An attractive route to these iron-oxo intermediates involves laser flash-quench oxidation of ferric hemes, as demonstrated by our work on the ferryl (compound II) and ferryl porphyrin radical cation (compound I) intermediates of horseradish peroxidase. Extension of this work to include cytochrome P450-BM3 (CYP102A1) has required covalent attachment of a Ru II photosensitizer to a nonnative cysteine near the heme (Ru II K97C -Fe III P450 ), in order to promote electron transfer from the Fe III porphyrin to photogenerated Ru III . The Ru II K97C -Fe III P450 conjugate was structurally characterized by X-ray crystallography (2.4 Å resolution; Ru-Fe distance, 24 Å). Flash-quench oxidation of the ferric-aquo heme produces an Fe IV -hydroxide species (compound II) within 2 ms. Difference spectra for three singly oxidized P450-BM3 intermediates were obtained from kinetics modeling of the transient absorption data in combination with generalized singular value decomposition analysis and multiexponential fitting.ruthenium bipyridine | enzyme catalysis T he cytochromes P450 constitute a superfamily of thiolateligated heme enzymes so named because the Soret absorption band in their CO-bound derivatives peaks near 450 nm. These monooxygenases catalyze a dazzling array of regio-and stereospecific oxidation reactions, including the hydroxylation of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons and the epoxidation of alkenes (1, 2). P450s take two reducing equivalents from NAD(P)H and deliver one atom from dioxygen to the organic substrate; the other oxygen atom is released as water. The consensus mechanism for P450 catalysis (Fig. 1) implicates a ferryl porphyrin radical cation [compound I (CI): Fig. 1, intermediate 6] as the active oxygenating agent (3), but this elusive species has not been observed in P450 under single-turnover or steady-state catalytic conditions. In the postulated mechanism, CI is proposed to abstract a hydrogen atom from the substrate to form transient Fe IV -hydroxide complex (compound II, CII), followed by radical recombination to produce oxygenated product (4, 5). Mechanistic studies of P450 catalysis in cryogenic matrices have suggested that the barrier to formation of CI (5 → 6) is higher than that for its reaction with substrate (6 → 7 → 1) (6). Consequently, recent efforts have focused on alternate routes to P450 CI that bypass the hydroperoxide intermediate (5). One approach employs generation of CII using peroxynitrite, followed by laser flash photolysis to yield CI (7). This technique has been used in studies of the spectra and reactivity of the putative CI species, but the interpretation of the results remains open to question.In earlier work, we employed ½RuðbpyÞ 3 2þ (bpy ¼ 2;2 0 -bipyridine) in a bimolecular flash-quench photochemical oxidation protocol to generate CII and CI in horseradish peroxidase (HRP) and the heme octapeptide from cyctochrome c (MP8) (8, 9). This approach was uns...

The homoleptic arylisocyanide tungsten complexes, W(CNXy) 6 and W(CNIph) 6 (Xy = 2,6dimethylphenyl, Iph = 2,6-diisopropylphenyl), display intense metal to ligand charge transfer (MLCT) absorptions in the visible region (400−550 nm). MLCT emission (λ max ≈ 580 nm) in tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution at rt is observed for W(CNXy) 6 and W(CNIph) 6 with lifetimes of 17 and 73 ns, respectively. Diffusioncontrolled energy transfer from electronically excited W(CNIph) 6 (*W) to the lowest energy triplet excited state of anthracene (anth) is the dominant quenching pathway in THF solution. Introduction of tetrabutylammonium hexafluorophosphate, [Bu n 4 N][PF 6 ], to the THF solution promotes formation of electron transfer (ET) quenching products, [W(CNIph) 6 ] + and [anth] •− . ET from *W to benzophenone and cobalticenium also is observed in [Bu n 4 N][PF 6 ]/THF solutions. The estimated reduction potential for the [W(CNIph) 6 ] + /*W couple is −2.8 V vs Cp 2 Fe +/0 , establishing W(CNIph) 6 as one of the most powerful photoreductants that has been generated with visible light.