Coordination of the Copper Centers in Particulate Methane Monooxygenase: Comparison between Methanotrophs and Characterization of the CuCSite by EPR and ENDOR Spectroscopies

In nature, methane is oxidized to methanol by two enzymes, the iron-dependent soluble methane monooxygenase (sMMO) and the copper-dependent particulate MMO (pMMO). While sMMO’s diiron metal active site is spectroscopically and structurally well-characterized, pMMO’s copper sites are not. Recent EPR and ENDOR studies have established the presence of two monocopper sites, but the coordination environment of only one has been determined, that within the PmoB subunit and denoted CuB. Moreover, this recent work only focused on a type I methanotrophic pMMO, while previous observations of the type II enzyme were interpreted in terms of the presence of a dicopper site. First, this report shows that the type II Methylocystis species strain Rockwell pMMO, like the type I pMMOs, contains two monocopper sites and that its CuB site has a coordination environment identical to that of type I enzymes. As such, for the full range of pMMOs this report completes the refutation of prior and ongoing suggestions of multicopper sites. Second, and of primary importance, EPR/ENDOR measurements (a) for the first time establish the coordination environment of the spectroscopically observed site, provisionally denoted CuC, in both types of pMMO, thereby (b) establishing the assignment of this site observed by EPR to the crystallographically observed metal-binding site in the PmoC subunit. Finally, these results further indicate that CuC is the likely site of biological methane oxidation by pMMO, a conclusion that will serve as a foundation for proposals regarding the mechanism of this reaction.