The Escherichia coli sulfur starvation utilization (ssu) operon includes a two-component monooxygenase system consisting of a nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH)-dependent flavin mononucleotide (FMN) reductase, SsuE, and a monooxygenase, SsuD. SsuE is part of the flavodoxin-like superfamily, and we report here the crystal structures of its apo, FMN-bound, and FMNH2-bound forms a...

Extracellular manipulation of protein disulfide bonds has been implied in diverse biological processes, including penetration of viruses and endotoxin into cells and activation of certain cytokine receptors. We now demonstrate reduction of one or more disulfide bonds in the serine proteinase, plasmin, by a reductase secreted by Chinese hamster ovary or HT1080 cells. Reduction of plasmin disulfi...

The aldo-keto reductases metabolize a wide range of substrates and are potential drug targets. This protein superfamily includes aldose reductases, aldehyde reductases, hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases and dihydrodiol dehydrogenases. By combining multiple sequence alignments with known three-dimensional structures and the results of site-directed mutagenesis studies, we have developed a structure/...

L-Xylulose reductases belong to the superfamily of short chain dehydrogenases and reductases (SDRs) and catalyze the NAD(P)H-dependent reduction of L-xylulose to xylitol in L-arabinose and glucuronic acid catabolism. Here we report the identification of a novel L-xylulose reductase LXR3 in the fungus Trichoderma reesei by a bioinformatic approach in combination with a functional analysis. LXR3,...

'Ene'-reductases have attracted significant attention for the preparation of chemical intermediates and biologically active products. To date, research has been focussed primarily on Old Yellow Enzyme-like proteins, due to their ease of handling, whereas 2-enoate reductases from clostridia have received much less attention, because of their oxygen sensitivity and a lack of suitable expression s...

Multiple forms of reductases for several drug ketones were isolated from rabbit liver, but their interrelationship and physiologic roles remain unknown. We isolated cDNAs for four aldo-keto reductases (AKR1C30, AKR1C31, AKR1C32, and AKR1C33), which share high amino acid sequence identity with the partial sequences of two rabbit naloxone reductases. The four recombinant enzymes reduced a variety...

The effects of digitonin and tocopherol on bovine heart reduced diphosphopyridine nucleotideand succinate-cytochrome c reductases and cytochrome c oxidase have been studied with the following results. 1. Low concentrations of digitonin stimulate succinateand DPNH-cytochrome c reductase and cytochrome c oxidase. Higher concentrations of digitonin completely inhibit cytochrome c reductases, while...