Direct coordination of pterin to FeII enables neurotransmitter biosynthesis in the pterin-dependent hydroxylases.

The pterin-dependent nonheme iron enzymes hydroxylate aromatic amino acids to perform the biosynthesis of neurotransmitters to maintain proper brain function. These enzymes activate oxygen using a pterin cofactor and an aromatic amino acid substrate bound to the FeII active site to form a highly reactive FeIV = O species that initiates substrate oxidation. In this study, using tryptophan hydroxylase, we have kinetically generated a pre-FeIV = O intermediate and characterized its structure as a FeII-peroxy-pterin species using absorption, Mössbauer, resonance Raman, and nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopies. From parallel characterization of the pterin cofactor and tryptophan substrate-bound ternary FeII active site before the O2 reaction (including magnetic circular dichroism spectroscopy), these studies both experimentally define the mechanism of FeIV = O formation and demonstrate that the carbonyl functional group on the pterin is directly coordinated to the FeII site in both the ternary complex and the peroxo intermediate. Reaction coordinate calculations predict a 14 kcal/mol reduction in the oxygen activation barrier due to the direct binding of the pterin carbonyl to the FeII site, as this interaction provides an orbital pathway for efficient electron transfer from the pterin cofactor to the iron center. This direct coordination of the pterin cofactor enables the biological function of the pterin-dependent hydroxylases and demonstrates a unified mechanism for oxygen activation by the cofactor-dependent nonheme iron enzymes.

Structural characterization of a non-heme iron active site in zeolites that hydroxylates methane.

Iron-containing zeolites exhibit unprecedented reactivity in the low-temperature hydroxylation of methane to form methanol. Reactivity occurs at a mononuclear ferrous active site, α-Fe(II), that is activated by N2O to form the reactive intermediate α-O. This has been defined as an Fe(IV)=O species. Using nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy coupled to X-ray absorption spectroscopy, we probe the bonding interaction between the iron center, its zeolite lattice-derived ligands, and the reactive oxygen. α-O is found to contain an unusually strong Fe(IV)=O bond resulting from a constrained coordination geometry enforced by the zeolite lattice. Density functional theory calculations clarify how the experimentally determined geometric structure of the active site leads to an electronic structure that is highly activated to perform H-atom abstraction.