Multicopper oxidase belongs to the class of enzyme containing four or more Cu centers in a protein molecule (1). The minimum functional unit of multicopper oxidase comprises a set of one type 1 Cu, one type 2 Cu, and a pair of type 3 Cus. The type 1 Cu functions as the electron mediator from a substrate to the trinuclear center composed of the type 2 Cu and type 3 Cus, where dioxygen is bound and reduced to two water molecules. All these copper sites are indispensable for the four-electron reduction of dioxygen without the release of activated oxygen species as intermediates.When lacquer tree laccase, the best studied multicopper oxidase, was reduced fully and reacted with dioxygen, the three-electron reduced form of dioxygen appeared within 15 ms with a life-time of s to min order depending on the pH (2, 3). We spectroscopically and magnetically characterized this species as the oxygen-centered racial bound to the trinclear copper center, finding that it decayed on accepting the final electron from type 2 Cu under the control of proton transfer gating (4). In order to detect the preceding inter-1 This study was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, C 11640558 and B 13440194, from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan, and the Joint Studies Program of the Institute for Molecular Science 1 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tsO513@ kenroku.kanazawa-u.ac.jp Abbreviations: TloxT23red, type 1 Cu as Cu(II), and type 2 and 3 Cus as Cud); TloxT3red, type 2 Cu-depleted laccase in which type 1 Cu is Cu(II) and type 3 Cus are reduced; T12oxT3red, type 1 and 2 Cus as Cu(ll), and type 3 Cus as Cu(D; EPR, electron paramagnetic resonance; CD, circular dichroism; T, tesla (1 T = 10,000 G); TlHg, mercury derivative of laccase at the type 1 Cu site; FTTR, Fouriertransform infrared; DPPH, diphenylpicrylhydrazyl.© 2001 by The Japanese Biochemical Society. mediate, such as the two-electron reduced form of dioxygen, we investigated the earlier reaction process of the reduced laccase with dioxygen by means of stopped-flow spectroscopy (2). However, it was impossible to detect the two-electron reduced form of dioxygen because the diffusion of dioxygen towards the active site was too slow (ms order) compared with the rate of the electron transfer from type 1 Cu to the putative peroxide intermediate (the two-electron reduced form) (|xs or less order). The content of the two-electron reduced species has been estimated to be a few percent and only the formation of the metastable three-electron reduced form of dioxygen (the radical intermediate) could be observed insofar as the reactions of the native enzyme were studied (3).The type 2 Cu in laccase has been selectively depleted through the action of potassium hexacyanoferratefll) CK,-[Fe(CN) 6 ]) on the resting enzyme under anaerobic conditions, followed by the action of dimethylglyoxime and EDTA (5). In the type 2 Cu-depelted laccase the type 1 Cu is cupric and the coupled type 3 Cus are cuprous (TloxT3red, which has been simply ab...