Significance Inorganic phosphate (Pi) is an essential component of many biological molecules and thus is required by all life forms. However, soluble Pi is typically at low abundance in the environment. To compensate, microbes have evolved unique carbon–phosphorus-bond cleaving reactions to use organophosphonates as an alternative source of Pi. The marine-derived enzyme PhnZ utilizes a new oxidative mechanism for CP bond cleavage involving iron and molecular oxygen. The three-dimensional structure of PhnZ reveals unique active site features that contribute to catalysis of CP bond cleavage and substrate specificity, as well as an evolutionary link between phosphodiester bond hydrolysis and oxidative bond cleavage. This evolutionary link likely reflects the ancient origins of organophosphonates in the environment.

PhnZ utilizes a mixed valence diiron(II/III) cofactor and O 2 to oxidatively cleave the carbon−phosphorus bond of (R)-2-amino-1-hydroxyethylphosphonic acid to form glycine and orthophosphate. The active site residues Y24 and E27 are proposed to mediate induced-fit recognition of the substrate and access of O 2 to one of the active site Fe ions. H62 is proposed to deprotonate the C1-hydroxyl of the substrate during catalysis. Kinetic isotope effects (KIEs), pH−rate dependence, and site-directed mutagenesis were used to probe the rate-determining transition state and the roles of these three active site residues. Primary deuterium KIE values of 5.5 ± 0.3 for D (V) and 2.2 ± 0.4 for D (V/K) were measured with (R)-2-amino[1-2 H 1 ]-1-hydroxyethylphosphonic acid, indicating that cleavage of the C1−H bond of the substrate is rate-limiting. This step is also rate-limiting for PhnZ Y24F, as shown by a significant deuterium KIE value of 2.3 ± 0.1 for D (V). In contrast, a different reaction step appears to be rate-limiting for the PhnZ E27A and H62A variants, which exhibited D (V) values near unity. A solvent KIE of 2.2 ± 0.3 for D 2 O (V) is observed for PhnZ. Significant solvent KIE values are also observed for the PhnZ Y24F and E27A variants. In contrast, the PhnZ H62A variant does not show a significant solvent KIE, suggesting that H62 is mediating proton transfer in the transition state. A proton inventory study with PhnZ indicates that 1.5 ± 0.6 protons are in flight in the rate-determining step. Overall, the ratedetermining transition state for oxidative C−P bond cleavage by PhnZ is proposed to involve C−H bond cleavage that is coupled to deprotonation of the substrate C1-hydroxyl by H62.

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Full-length huntingtin (FL HTT) is a large (aa 1-3,144), ubiquitously expressed, polyglutamine (polyQ)-containing protein with a mass of approximately 350 kDa. While the cellular function of FL HTT is not entirely understood, a mutant expansion of the polyQ tract above ~36 repeats is associated with Huntington's disease (HD), with the polyQ length correlating roughly with the age of onset. To better understand the effect of structure on the function of mutant HTT (mHTT), large quantities of the protein are required. Submilligram production of FL HTT in mammalian cells was achieved using doxycycline-inducible stable cell line expression. However, protein production from stable cell lines has limitations that can be overcome with transient transfection methods.This paper presents a robust method for low-milligram quantity production of FL HTT and its variants from codon-optimized plasmids by transient transfection using polyethylenimine (PEI). The method is scalable (>10 mg) and consistently yields 1-2 mg/L of cell culture of highly purified FL HTT. Consistent with previous reports, the purified solution state of FL HTT was found to be highly dynamic; the protein has a propensity to form dimers and high-order oligomers. A key to slowing oligomer formation is working quickly to isolate the monomeric fractions from the dimeric and high-order oligomeric fractions during size exclusion chromatography.Size exclusion chromatography with multiangle light scattering (SEC-MALS) was used to analyze the dimer and higher-order oligomeric content of purified HTT. No correlation was observed between FL HTT polyQ length (Q23, Q48, and Q73) and oligomer content. The exon1-deleted construct (aa 91-3,144) showed comparable oligomerization propensity to FL HTT (aa 1-3,144). Production, purification, and characterization methods by SEC/MALS-refractive index (RI), sodium dodecylsulfate-