Synthetic modeling of the structure and function of the rare-earth dependent methanol dehydrogenase cofactor.

Alison L Knasin, Eric J Schelter

Methods in enzymology 2021

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Historically, rare-earth ions have been considered irrelevant to biology. Recently, the active sites of certain methanol dehydrogenase (MDH) enzymes have been shown to contain a redox-inactive, rare-earth (RE) cation coordinated by the redox-active pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) cofactor. Importantly, it was demonstrated that rare earths were essential for the growth of certain methylotrophs that incorporated the XoxF-MDH. In this chapter, we summarize the optimized synthesis of a previously published rare-earth complex that serves as a model of the active site of this RE-containing MDH enzyme. The structure and reactivity of the metalated complex, [La(LQQ)(NO3)3] are also discussed. [La(LQQ)(NO3)3] catalytically oxidizes the test alcohol substrate, p-methylbenzyl alcohol, 4MeBnOH, to p-methylbenzaldehyde, 4MePhCHO, in the presence of a base (2,6-lutidine) and a terminal oxidant (ferrocenium hexafluorophosphate) with ~17 turnovers. By studying this synthetic model, we have developed a body of evidence about both the reactivity and the mechanism of dehydrogenation of alcohols as a molecular analogue to a native, rare-earth dependent enzyme. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Citation

Alison L Knasin, Eric J Schelter. Synthetic modeling of the structure and function of the rare-earth dependent methanol dehydrogenase cofactor. Methods in enzymology. 2021;650:19-55