Addition of oxygen to the diiron(II/II) cluster is the slowest step in formation of the tyrosyl radical in the W103Y variant of ribonucleotide reductase protein R2 from mouse.

Activation of O2 by the diiron(II/II) cluster in protein R2 of class I ribonucleotide reductase generates the enzyme's essential tyrosyl radical. A crucial step in this reaction is the transfer of an electron from solution to a diiron(II/II)-O2 adduct during formation of the radical-generating, diiron(III/IV) intermediate X. In the reaction of R2 from Escherichia coli, this electron injection is initiated by the rapid (>400 s-1 at 5 degrees C), transient oxidation of the near-surface residue, tryptophan 48, to a cation radical and is blocked by substitution of W48 with F, A, G, Y, L, or Q. By contrast, a study of the cognate reaction in protein R2 from mouse suggested that electron injection might be the slowest step in generation of its tyrosyl radical, Y177* [Schmidt, P. P., Rova, U., Katterle, B., Thelander, L., and Gräslund, A. (1998) J. Biol. Chem. 273, 21463-21472]. The crucial evidence was the observation that Y177* production is slowed by approximately 30-fold upon substitution of W103, the cognate of the electron-shuttling W48 in E. coli R2, with tyrosine. In this work, we have applied stopped-flow absorption and freeze-quench electron paramagnetic resonance and Mössbauer spectroscopies to the mouse R2 reaction to evaluate the possibility that an already sluggish electron-transfer step is slowed by 30-fold by substitution of this key residue. The drastically reduced accumulation of cluster X, failure of precursors to the intermediate to accumulate, and, most importantly, first-order dependence of the rate of Y177* formation on the concentration of O2 prove that addition of O2 to the diiron(II/II) cluster, rather than electron injection, is the slowest step in the R2-W103Y reaction. This finding indicates that the basis for the slowing of Y177* formation by the W103Y substitution is an unexpected secondary effect on the structure or dynamics of the protein, its diiron(II/II) cluster, or both rather than the expected chemical effect on the electron injection step.