The metal-sulphur active sites of hydrogenases catalyse hydrogen evolution or uptake at rapid rates. Understanding the structure and function of these active sites--through mechanistic studies of hydrogenases, synthetic assemblies and in silico models--will help guide the design of new materials for hydrogen production or uptake. Here we report the assembly of the iron-sulphur framework of the active site of iron-only hydrogenase (the H-cluster), and show that it functions as an electrocatalyst for proton reduction. Through linking of a di-iron subsite to a {4Fe4S} cluster, we achieve the first synthesis of a metallosulphur cluster core involved in small-molecule catalysis. In addition to advancing our understanding of the natural biological system, the availability of an active, free-standing analogue of the H-cluster may enable us to develop useful electrocatalytic materials for application in, for example, reversible hydrogen fuel cells. (Platinum is currently the preferred electrocatalyst for such applications, but is expensive, limited in availability and, in the long term, unsustainable.).

SummaryGreat excitement was elicited in the field of selenium biochemistry in 1986 by the parallel discoveries that the genes encoding the selenoproteins glutathione peroxidase and bacterial formate dehydrogenase each contain an in-frame TGA codon within their coding sequence. We now know that this codon directs the incorporation of selenium, in the form of selenocysteine, into these proteins. Working with the bacterial system has led to a rapid increase in our knowledge of selenocysteine biosynthesis and to the exciting discovery that this system can now be regarded as an expansion of the genetic code. The prerequisites for such a definition are co-translational insertion into the polypeptide chain and the occurrence of a tRNA molecule which carries selenocysteine. Both of these criteria are fulfilled and, moreover, tRNA^"'' even has its own special translation factor which delivers it to the translating ribosome. It is the aim of this article to review the events leading to the elucidation of selenocysteine as being the 21st amino acid.

Copper-containing nitrite reductases catalyze the reduction of nitrite to nitric oxide (NO), a key step in denitrification that results in the loss of terrestrial nitrogen to the atmosphere. They are found in a wide variety of denitrifying bacteria and fungi of different physiology from a range of soil and aquatic ecosystems. Structural analysis of potential intermediates in the catalytic cycle is an important goal in understanding enzyme mechanism. Using ''crystal harvesting'' and substrate-soaking techniques, we have determined atomic resolution structures of four forms of the green Cu-nitrite reductase, from the soil bacterium Achromobacter cycloclastes. These structures are the resting state of the enzyme at 0.9 Å, two species exhibiting different conformations of nitrite bound at the catalytic type 2 Cu, one of which is stable and also has NO present, at 1.10 Å and 1.15 Å, and a stable form with the product NO bound side-on to the catalytic type 2 Cu, at 1.12 Å resolution. These structures provide incisive insights into the initial binding of substrate, its repositioning before catalysis, bond breakage (O-NO), and the formation of a stable NO adduct.catalysis ͉ denitrification ͉ enzyme mechanism ͉ nitrite and nitric oxide binding ͉ crystal structures

Hypophosphite was used as a toxic analogue to identify genes whose products have a putative function in the transport of formate. Two Tn10-derived insertion mutants were identified that exhibited increased resistance to high concentrations of hypophosphite in the culture medium. The transposon was located in the identical position in the focA (formate channel; previously termed orf) gene of the pfl operon in both mutants. A defined chromosomal focA nonsense mutant, which showed minimal polarity effects on pfl gene expression, had the same phenotype as the insertion mutants. Results obtained using a hycA-lacZ fusion to monitor changes in the intracellular formate concentration in a focA mutant indicated that the level of formate inside the cell was elevated compared with the wild type. Moreover, it could be shown that there was a corresponding reduction of approximately 50% in the amount of formate excreted by a focA mutant into the culture medium. Taken together, these results indicate that formate accumulates in anaerobic cells which do not have a functional focA gene product and that one function of FocA may be to export formate from the cell. A further significant result was that hypophosphite could substitute for formate in activating hycA gene expression. This hypophosphite-dependent activation of hycA gene expression was reduced 10-fold in a focA null mutant, suggesting that hypophosphite must first enter the cell before it can act as a signal to activate hycA expression. By analogy, these data suggest that focA may also be functional in the import of formate into anaerobic Escherichia coli cells. Site-specific mutagenesis identified the translation initiation codon of focA as a GUG. Therefore, the FocA polypeptide has a molecular weight of 30,958. FocA shows significant similarity at both the primary and secondary structural levels with the NirC protein of E. coli and the FdhC protein of Methanobacterium formicicum. All three proteins are predicted to be integral membrane proteins. A detailed in vivo TnphoA mutagenesis study predicted that FocA has six membrane-spanning segments.