Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-25-2003

Publication Title

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Department

Geisel School of Medicine

Abstract

The chemistry of disulfide exchange in biological systems is well studied. However, the detailed mechanism of how oxidizing equivalents are derived to form disulfide bonds in proteins is not clear. In prokaryotic organisms, it is known that DsbB delivers oxidizing equivalents through DsbA to secreted proteins. DsbB becomes reoxidized by reducing quinones that are part of the membrane-bound electron-transfer chains. It is this quinone reductase activity that links disulfide bond formation to the electron transport system. We show here that purified DsbB contains the spectral signal of a quinhydrone, a charge-transfer complex consisting of a hydroquinone and a quinone in a stacked configuration. We conclude that disulfide bond formation involves a stacked hydroquinone-benzoquinone pair that can be trapped on DsbB as a quinhydrone charge-transfer complex. Quinhydrones are known to be redox-active and are commonly used as redox standards, but, to our knowledge, have never before been directly observed in biological systems. We also show kinetically that this quinhydrone-type charge-transfer complex undergoes redox reactions consistent with its being an intermediate in the reaction mechanism of DsbB. We propose a simple model for the action of DsbB where a quinhydrone-like complex plays a crucial role as a reaction intermediate.

DOI

10.1073/pnas.1935988100

Original Citation

Regeimbal J, Gleiter S, Trumpower BL, Yu CA, Diwakar M, Ballou DP, Bardwell JC. Disulfide bond formation involves a quinhydrone-type charge-transfer complex. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Nov 25;100(24):13779-84. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1935988100. Epub 2003 Nov 11. PMID: 14612576; PMCID: PMC283498.

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