SUMMARYMononuclear non-haem iron (NHFe) enzymes catalyse a wide variety of oxidative reactions including halogenation, hydroxylation, ring closure, desaturation, and aromatic ring cleavage. These are highly important for mammalian somatic processes such as phenylalanine metabolism, production of neurotransmitters, hypoxic response, and the biosynthesis of natural products.1–3 The key reactive intermediate in the catalytic cycles of these enzymes is an S = 2 FeIV=O species, which has been trapped for a number of NHFe enzymes4–8 including the halogenase SyrB2, the subject of this study. Computational studies to understand the reactivity of the enzymatic NHFe FeIV=O intermediate9–13 are limited in applicability due to the paucity of experimental knowledge regarding its geometric and electronic structures, which determine its reactivity. Synchrotron-based nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy (NRVS) is a sensitive and effective method that defines the dependence of the vibrational modes of Fe on the nature of the FeIV=O active site.14–16 Here we present the first NRVS structural characterisation of the reactive FeIV=O intermediate of a NHFe enzyme. This FeIV=O intermediate reacts via an initial H-atom abstraction step, with its subsquent halogenation (native) or hydroxylation (non-native) rebound reactivity being dependent on the substrate.17 A correlation of the experimental NRVS data to electronic structure calculations indicates that the substrate is able to direct the orientation of the FeIV=O intermediate, presenting specific frontier molecular orbitals (FMOs) which can activate the selective halogenation versus hydroxylation reactivity.

High valent Fe IV =O species are key intermediates in the catalytic cycles of many mononuclear nonheme iron enzymes and have been structurally defined in model systems. Variable temperature magnetic circular dichroism (VT-MCD) spectroscopy has been used to evaluate the electronic structures and in particular the Density Functional calculations were correlated to the data and support the experimental analysis. The strength and covalency of the Fe-O π-bond result in high oxygen character in the important frontier molecular orbitals (FMOs) for this reaction, the unoccupied β-spin d(xz/yz) orbitals, and activates these for electrophilic attack. An extension to biologically relevant Fe IV =O (S=2) enzyme intermediates shows that these can perform electrophilic attack reactions along the same mechanistic pathway (π-FMO pathway) with similar reactivity, but also have an additional reaction channel involving the unoccupied α-spin d(z 2 ) orbital (σ-FMO pathway).These studies experimentally probe the FMOs involved in the reactivity of Fe IV =O (S=1) model complexes resulting in a detailed understanding of the Fe-O bond and its contributions to reactivity.

Strategies for O 2 activation by copper enzymes were recently expanded to include mononuclear Cu sites, with the discovery of the copper-dependent polysaccharide monooxygenases, also classified as auxiliary-activity enzymes 9-11 (AA9-11). These enzymes are finding considerable use in industrial biofuel production. Crystal structures of polysaccharide monooxygenases have emerged, but experimental studies are yet to determine the solution structure of the Cu site and how this relates to reactivity. From X-ray absorption near edge structure and extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopies, we observed a change from four-coordinate Cu(II) to three-coordinate Cu(I) of the active site in solution, where three protein-derived nitrogen ligands coordinate the Cu in both redox states, and a labile hydroxide ligand is lost upon reduction. The spectroscopic data allowed for density functional theory calculations of an enzyme active site model, where the optimized Cu(I) and (II) structures were consistent with the experimental data. The O 2 reactivity of the Cu(I) site was probed by EPR and stopped-flow absorption spectroscopies, and a rapid one-electron reduction of O 2 and regeneration of the resting Cu(II) enzyme were observed. This reactivity was evaluated computationally, and by calibration to Cu-superoxide model complexes, formation of an end-on Cu-AA9-superoxide species was found to be thermodynamically favored. We discuss how this thermodynamically difficult one-electron reduction of O 2 is enabled by the unique protein structure where two nitrogen ligands from His1 dictate formation of a T-shaped Cu(I) site, which provides an open coordination position for strong O 2 binding with very little reorganization energy.X-ray absorption spectroscopy | DFT | dioxygen activation | biofuels

Conspectus Mononuclear non-heme Fe (NHFe) enzymes play key roles in antibiotic biosynthesis, hypoxic response, DNA repair, anticancer therapy and many other biological processes. On a molecular level these enzymes catalyze a diverse range of oxidation reactions, including hydroxylation, halogenation, ring closure, desaturation and electrophilic aromatic substitution (EAS). Most of these enzymes use an FeII site to activate dioxygen. These ferrous active sites had been inaccessible to traditional spectroscopic methods. A methodology has been developed that provides detailed geometric and electronic structure insight for these NHFeII active sites. This has defined a general mechanistic strategy utilized by a wide range of these enzymes to control O2 activation by FeII coordination unsaturation only in the presence of cosubstrates to limit autooxidation and self-hydroxylation. Depending on the type of enzyme, O2 activation either involves a 2e− reduced FeIII–OOH intermediate or a 4e− reduced FeIV=O intermediate. The nature of these intermediates has been defined in terms of geometric structure using nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy (NRVS) and electronic structure using magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) to define the frontier molecular orbitals (FMOs) that control reactivity. For FeIII–OOH intermediates the anticancer drug Activated Bleomycin is shown to be the non-heme Fe analog of compound 0 in heme (e.g. P450) chemistry but undergoes different reactivity where the low-spin (LS) FeIII–OOH can directly abstract an H atom from DNA. It is also shown that the transition states of LS and high-spin (HS) FeIII–OOH are fundamentally different in that the former goes through a hydroxyl radical while the latter is activated for EAS without O-O cleavage, which is important in one class of NHFe enzymes that utilizes a HS FeIII–OOH intermediate in dioxygenation. For FeIV=O intermediates the LS form is shown to have a π-type FMO activated for attack perpendicular to the Fe–O bond while the HS form (present in the NHFe enzymes) has both π and σ FMOs that are activated for attack both perpendicular to and along the Fe–O bond, respectively. For the NHFe enzymes these π vs σ FMOs direct reactivity for EAS vs H-atom abstraction, and for the latter halogenation vs hydroxylation. This study emphasizes that experimental spectroscopy is critical in evaluating the results of electronic structure calculations and thus key to bridging structure and reactivity with mechanism.