S - and N -Oxide Reductases

Abstract

Escherichia coli is a versatile facultative anaerobe that can respire on a number of terminal electron acceptors, including oxygen, fumarate, nitrate, and S - and N -oxides. Anaerobic respiration using S - and N -oxides is accomplished by enzymatic reduction of these substrates by dimethyl sulfoxide reductase (DmsABC) and trimethylamine N -oxide reductase (TorCA). Both DmsABC and TorCA are membrane-associated redox enzymes that couple the oxidation of menaquinol to the reduction of S - and N -oxides in the periplasm. DmsABC is membrane bound and is composed of a membrane-extrinsic dimer with a 90.4-kDa catalytic subunit (DmsA) and a 23.1-kDa electron transfer subunit (DmsB). These subunits face the periplasm and are held to the membrane by a 30.8-kDa membrane anchor subunit (DmsC). The enzyme provides the scaffold for an electron transfer relay composed of a quinol binding site, five [4Fe-4S] clusters, and a molybdo-bis(molybdopterin guanine dinucleotide) (present nomenclature: Mo-bis-pyranopterin) (Mo-bisMGD) cofactor. TorCA is composed of a soluble periplasmic subunit (TorA, 92.5 kDa) containing a Mo-bis-MGD. TorA is coupled to the quinone pool via a pentaheme c subunit (TorC, 40.4 kDa) in the membrane. Both DmsABC and TorCA require system-specific chaperones (DmsD or TorD) for assembly, cofactor insertion, and/or targeting to the Tat translocon. In this chapter, we discuss the complex regulation of the dmsABC and torCAD operons, the poorly understood paralogues, and what is known about the assembly and translocation to the periplasmic space by the Tat translocon.