How periplasmic thioredoxin TlpA reduces bacterial copper chaperone ScoI and cytochrome oxidase subunit II (CoxB) prior to metallation.

Two critical cysteine residues in the copper-A site (Cu(A)) on subunit II (CoxB) of bacterial cytochrome c oxidase lie on the periplasmic side of the cytoplasmic membrane. As the periplasm is an oxidizing environment as compared with the reducing cytoplasm, the prediction was that a disulfide bond formed between these cysteines must be eliminated by reduction prior to copper insertion. We show here that a periplasmic thioredoxin (TlpA) acts as a specific reductant not only for the Cu(2+) transfer chaperone ScoI but also for CoxB. The dual role of TlpA was documented best with high-resolution crystal structures of the kinetically trapped TlpA-ScoI and TlpA-CoxB mixed disulfide intermediates. They uncovered surprisingly disparate contact sites on TlpA for each of the two protein substrates. The equilibrium of CoxB reduction by TlpA revealed a thermodynamically favorable reaction, with a less negative redox potential of CoxB (E'0 = -231 mV) as compared with that of TlpA (E'0 = -256 mV). The reduction of CoxB by TlpA via disulfide exchange proved to be very fast, with a rate constant of 8.4 × 10(4) M(-1) s(-1) that is similar to that found previously for ScoI reduction. Hence, TlpA is a physiologically relevant reductase for both ScoI and CoxB. Although the requirement of ScoI for assembly of the Cu(A)-CoxB complex may be bypassed in vivo by high environmental Cu(2+) concentrations, TlpA is essential in this process because only reduced CoxB can bind copper ions.