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Query: UMLS:C0016632 (Fox)
 1,461 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Mercuric reductase contains FAD and a redox-active disulfide which is reduced to a thiol/thiolate pair in two-electron reduced enzyme (EH2) (Fox, B. and Walsh, C.T. (1982) J. Biol. Chem. 257, 2498-2503). A charge transfer interaction between the thiolate and oxidized FAD gives EH2 a characteristic absorption spectrum, very similar to that found with other flavoprotein disulfide oxidoreductases. We have examined the reaction of EH2 with HgCl2 (+/- mercaptoethanol) in stopped-flow kinetic and static titration experiments. In the absence of mercaptoethanol, reaction of EH2 with HgCl2 yields a final spectrum which is indistinguishable from that of oxidized enzyme. The nature of the final species was examined by titration of enzyme thiols with 5,5'-dithiobis-2,2'-nitrobenzoic acid under denaturing conditions in the presence of NaI to displace any Hg(II) bound to enzyme thiols. These studies demonstrate that EH2 tightly complexes Hg(II) with its active site thiols, but is incapable of reducing Hg(II) to Hg0. For the latter reaction to occur, additional reducing equivalents are required. In catalysis, the enzyme must first be reduced to EH2 after which it cycles between EH2 and EH2 X NADPH forms. This is in contrast to other flavoprotein disulfide oxidoreductases which cycle between Eox and EH2 forms in catalysis (Williams, C. H., Jr. (1976) in The Enzymes (Boyer, P. D., ed) 3rd Ed., Vol. 13, pp. 89-173, Academic Press, New York). With mercuric reductase, exogenous thiols are required for catalytic reduction of Hg(II) to Hg0. We have shown that this is due to prevention or reversal of formation of an abortive complex of Hg(II) with the thiol/thiolate pair of EH2.
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PMID:Two-electron reduced mercuric reductase binds Hg(II) to the active site dithiol but does not catalyze Hg(II) reduction. 352 63

The mercuric ion reduction system encoded by the Hg2+ inducible mer operon confers bacterial resistance to mercuric ion. The mer A gene product which is a FAD-containing enzyme catalyzes the reduction of Hg2+ to volatile elemental mercury with the help of intracellular thiols and NADPH as a cofactor (Schottel 1974; Summers and Silver 1978; Fox and Walsh 1982; Misra 1992). Our earlier studies have shown that growing cells of different mercury-resistant bacteria reduce Hg2+ compounds to Hg(O) (Ray et al. 1989; Pahan et al. 1990a; Gachhui et al. 1989). We have also shown the effect of thiol compounds and flavins on mercury-degrading enzyme activities in mercury-resistant bacteria (Pahan et al. 1990b). Here we report that resting cells of mercury-resistant bacteria survive in a buffer system for several hours, synthesize inducible mercury-degrading enzymes and volatilize mercury from a mercury-containing buffer system. We know of no information regarding studies of mercury-degrading enzymes in resting mercury-resistant bacterial cells.
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PMID:Volatilization of mercury by resting mercury-resistant bacterial cells. 872 98