On the relationship of coral allene oxide synthase to catalase. A single active site mutation that induces catalase activity in coral allene oxide synthase.

A heme domain of coral allene oxide synthase (cAOS) catalyzes the formation of allene oxide from fatty acid hydroperoxide. Although cAOS has a similar heme active site to that of catalase, cAOS is completely lacking in catalase activity. A close look at the hydrogen-bonding possibilities around the distal His in cAOS suggested that the imidazole ring is rotated by 180 degrees relative to that of catalase because of the hydrogen bond between Thr-66 and the distal His-67. This could contribute to the functional differences between cAOS and catalase, and to examine this possibility, we mutated Thr-66 in cAOS to Val, the corresponding residue in catalase. In contrast to the complete absence of catalase activity in wild type (WT) cAOS, T66V had a modest catalase activity. On the other hand, the mutation suppressed the native enzymatic activity of the formation of allene oxide to 14% of that of WT cAOS. In the resonance Raman spectrum, whereas WT cAOS has only a 6-coordinate/high spin heme, T66V has a 5-coordinate/high spin heme as a minor species. Because catalase adopts a 5-coordinate/high spin structure, probably the 5-coordinate/high spin portion of T66V showed the catalase activity. Furthermore, in accord with the fact that the CN affinity of catalase is higher than that of WT cAOS, the CN affinity of T66V was 8-fold higher than that of WT cAOS, indicating that the mutation could mimic the heme active site in catalase. We, therefore, propose that the hydrogen bond between Thr-66 and distal His-67 could modulate the orientation of distal His, thereby regulating the enzymatic activity in cAOS.