Oxometalloporphyrin Intermediates in Enzymatic ProcessesMetalloenzymes catalyze a host of biological oxidation reactions that are crucial to life processes. The cytochromes P450, an important family of heme-iron metalloenzymes, are oxidoreductases that activate molecular oxygen (O2) and incorporate one of the oxygen atoms into a wide variety of biological substrates, with concurrent two-electron reduction of the other oxygen atom to H 2 0.' The structure, biochemistry, molecular biology and the chemistry of cytochrome P450 and related model systems was extensively reviewed recently. 1 Cytochrome P450 enzymes have been isolated from numerous mammalian tissues (e.g. liver, kidney, lung, intestine and adrenal cortex), as well as insects, plants, yeast and bacteria, 2 and are known to catalyze hydroxylations, epoxidations, N-, S-and O-dealkylations, N-oxidations, sulfoxidations, and dehalogenations. 1 These oxygenation reactions play a central role in carcinogen activation, drug and xenobiotic detoxification, and steroid and prostaglandin metabolism. Surprisingly, the active site of the enzyme, known in detail from several X-ray crystal structures, is extraordinarily simple, with an iron protoporphyrin IX (3.1; Fig. 3.1) buried deep in a hydrophobic, substrate-binding pocket of 91 Biomimetic Oxidations Catalyzed by Transition Metal Complexes Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com by KAINAN UNIVERSITY on 02/20/15. For personal use only.