Timing of NO binding and protonation in the catalytic reaction of bacterial nitric oxide reductase as established by time-resolved spectroscopy

Abstract

Membrane-integrated nitric oxide reductases (NOR) catalyze the formation of nitrous oxide (N2O) from two NO molecules using two protons and two electrons at a heme/non-heme iron binuclear center. Despite extensive efforts, the mechanism underlying the NOR-catalyzed reaction has been poorly understood due to the rapidity of the reaction. Here, we utilized a photosensitive caged NO compound as a trigger for the NOR reaction to characterize the NO reduction mechanism by timeresolved visible absorption spectroscopy. We showed that the NOR reaction consists of three steps. One NO molecule binds to the reduced binuclear center to form a non-heme Fe(II)-NO species in the 1st phase (microsecond timescale), followed by a migration of NO to form the other chemical species, possibly 5-coordinate heme b3-NO, in the 2nd phase (timescale of tens of microseconds). Then, the NO bound to heme reacts with a second NO molecule in the 3rd phase (millisecond timescale), in which protonation and electron transfer promote N-N bond formation and N-O bond cleavage to yield N2O. These findings led us to propose a revised trans mechanism for NO reduction by NOR.