Dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) catalyzes the NADPH-dependent reduction of dihydrofolate (DHF) to tetrahydrofolate (THF). An important step in the mechanism involves proton donation to the N5 atom of DHF. The inability to determine the protonation states of active site residues and substrate has led to a lack of consensus regarding the catalytic mechanism involved. To resolve this ambiguity, we ...

A compound exhibits tautomerism if it can be represented by two structures that are related by an intramolecular movement of hydrogen from one atom to another. The different tautomers of a molecule usually have different molecular fingerprints, hydrophobicities and pKa's as well as different 3D shape and electrostatic properties; additionally, proteins frequently preferentially bind a tautomer ...

We present systematic direct ab initio dynamics studies of proton transfer in hydrogen-bond systems using the tautomerization in gas phase formamidine and its monohydrated complex as model reactions. The thermal rate constants were calculated using a canonical variational transition state theory (CVT) with multidimensional semiclassical tunneling corrections within a small-curvature ground-stat...

Recent studies of the reaction mechanism of the molybdenum-containing enzyme xanthine oxidase are presented. The pH-dependence of both the steady-state and rapid reaction kinetics of the enzyme exhibits is bell-shaped, with pK(a)s for the acid and alkaline limbs of 6.6 and 7.4, respectively. These are assigned to ionizations of an active site base and substrate, respectively, with the implicati...

A metal ion that attaches to a peptide backbone has the choice of binding to an amide carbonyl oxygen atom or to an amide nitrogen atom by replacement of the amide proton. Coordination to the nitrogen atom is normally accompanied by elimination of the proton, thereby resulting in deprotonation of the ligand. An alternative possibility, not involving deprotonation, is the unusual amide/iminol ta...

Dopachrome tautomerase (DCT; EC 5.3.3.12) catalyses the conversion of L-dopachrome into 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acid in the mammalian eumelanogenic biosynthetic pathway. This enzyme, also named TRP2, belongs to a family of three metalloenzymes termed the tyrosinase-related proteins (TRPs). It is well known that tyrosinase has copper in its active site. However, the nature of the metal ...