{"id":695,"date":"2026-04-15T13:26:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/?p=695"},"modified":"2026-04-15T13:26:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:26:42","slug":"mechanism-of-the-clostridium-thermoaceticum-pyruvateferredoxin-oxidoreductase-evidence-for-the-common-catalytic-intermediacy-of-the-hydroxyethylthiamine-pyropyrosphate-radical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/?p=695","title":{"rendered":"Mechanism of the <i>Clostridium thermoaceticum<\/i> Pyruvate:Ferredoxin Oxidoreductase:\u2009 Evidence for the Common Catalytic Intermediacy of the Hydroxyethylthiamine Pyropyrosphate Radical"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>DOI:<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1021\/bi970403k\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10.1021\/bi970403k<\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Authors:<\/h4>\n<p>Saurabh Menon, Stephen W. Ragsdale<\/p>\n<h4>Abstract:<\/h4>\n<p>The cofactor content and mechanism of pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase (PFOR) are controversial. By using rapid freeze-quench EPR and stopped-flow spectroscopy, the elementary steps that constitute the first half-reaction of the Clostridiumthermoaceticum PFOR mechanism were elucidated. A hydroxyethyl-TPP (HE-TPP) radical was identified and characterized as a transient intermediate, and for the first time, the kinetic competence of this substrate-derived radical was demonstrated. When the C. thermoaceticum PFOR was reacted with pyruvate and CoA, it had a lifetime of only approximately 100 ms. The results described here suggest that this radical intermediate is often not detected in studies of alpha-ketoacid oxidoreductases because it rapidly decays. It is postulated here that the HE-TPP radical is an intermediate in the mechanism of all PFORs irrespective of the number of 4Fe-4S clusters and will be detected in all PFORs when rapid mixing methods are used. The C. thermoaceticum PFOR was shown to contain two 4Fe-4S clusters, as concluded earlier [Wahl, R. C., &amp; Orme-Johnson, W. H. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 262, 10489-10496]. The first reductive half-reaction was shown to involve the following steps: (i) reaction with pyruvate with PFOR to form the hydroxyethylidene-TPP intermediate; (ii) one-electron transfer to reduce one of the two Fe4S4 clusters and yield the HE-TPP radical; and, (iii) reaction with CoA resulting in formation of acetyl-CoA, rapid decay of the HE-TPP radical intermediate, and reduction of the second Fe4S4 cluster. Thus, at the end of the first half-reaction, the two Fe4S4 clusters are fully reduced. The rate of the third step was found to depend on the CoA concentration (k = 35 per s at saturating concentrations of CoA); however, in its absence, this step was slower by approximately 4400-fold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DOI: 10.1021\/bi970403k Authors: Saurabh Menon, Stephen W. Ragsdale Abstract: The cofactor content and mechanism of pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase (PFOR) are controversial. By using rapid freeze-quench EPR and stopped-flow spectroscopy, the elementary steps that constitute the first half-reaction of the Clostridiumthermoaceticum PFOR mechanism were elucidated. A hydroxyethyl-TPP (HE-TPP) radical was identified and characterized as a transient intermediate, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freeze-quench"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citations.tools.bio-logic.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}