Health & Environmental Research Online (HERO)


Print Feedback Export to File
3250293 
Journal Article 
Review 
Carbon Monoxide. Toxic Gas and Fuel for Anaerobes and Aerobes: Carbon Monoxide Dehydrogenases 
Jeoung, J; Fesseler, J; Goetzl, S; Dobbek, H 
2014 
0 
Metal Ions in Life Sciences
ISSN: 1559-0836
EISSN: 2041-9821 
Metal Ions in Life Sciences 
14 
37-69 
English 
25416390 
WOS:000362550200005 
Carbon monoxide (CO) pollutes the atmosphere and is toxic
for respiring organisms including man. But CO is also an energy and carbon source for
phylogenetically diverse microbes living under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Use of CO as
metabolic fuel for microbes relies on enzymes like carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH) and
acetyl-CoA synthase (ACS), which catalyze conversions resembling processes that eventually
initiated the dawn of life. CODHs catalyze the (reversible) oxidation of CO with water to CO2 and
come in two different flavors with unprecedented active site architectures. Aerobic bacteria
employ a Cu- and Mo-containing CODH in which Cu activates CO and Mo activates water and takes up
the two electrons generated in the reaction. Anaerobic bacteria and archaea use a Ni- and Fe-
containing CODH, where Ni activates CO and Fe provides the nucleophilic water. Ni- and Fe-
containing CODHs are frequently associated with ACS, where the CODH component reduces CO2 to CO
and ACS condenses CO with a methyl group and CoA to acetyl-CoA. Our current state of knowledge on
how the three enzymes catalyze these reactions will be summarized and the different strategies of
CODHs to achieve the same task within different active site architectures compared. 
acetyl-CoA synthase; carboxydotrophic; iron-sulfur cluster; molybdenum; molybdopterin; nickel