Utilization of mononuclear iron-
and 2-oxoglutarate-dependent (Fe/2OG)
enzymes to enable C–H bond functionalization is a widely used
strategy to diversify the structural complexity of natural products.
Besides those well-studied reactions including hydroxylation, epoxidation,
and halogenation, in the biosynthetic pathway of dehydrofosmidomycin,
an Fe/2OG enzyme is reported to catalyze desaturation, alkyl chain
elongation, along with demethylation in which trimethyl-2-aminoethylphosphonate
is converted into methyldehydrofosmidomycin. How this transformation
takes place is largely unknown. Herein, we characterized the reactive
species, revealed the structure of the reaction intermediate, and
used mechanistic probes to investigate the reaction pathway and mechanism.
These results led to the elucidation of a two-step process in which
the first reaction employs a long-lived Fe(IV)-oxo species to trigger
CC bond installation. During the second reaction, the olefin
installed in situ enables C–C bond formation that is accompanied
with a C–N bond cleavage and hydroxylation to furnish the alkyl
chain elongation and demethylation. This work expands the reaction
repertoire of Fe/2OG enzymes by introducing a new pathway to the known
C–C bond formation mechanisms utilized by metalloenzymes.