The archaeon Methanocaldococcus jannaschii uses three different 2-oxoacid elongation pathways, which extend the chain length of precursors in leucine, isoleucine, and coenzyme B biosyntheses. In each of these pathways an aconitase-type hydrolyase catalyzes an hydroxyacid isomerization reaction. The genome sequence of M. jannaschii encodes two homologs of each large and small subunit that forms the hydrolyase, but the genes are not cotranscribed. The genes are more similar to each other than to previously characterized isopropylmalate isomerase or homoaconitase enzyme genes. To identify the functions of these homologs, the four combinations of subunits were heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli, purified, and reconstituted to generate the iron-sulfur center of the holoenzyme. Only the combination of MJ0499 and MJ1277 proteins catalyzed isopropylmalate and citramalate isomerization reactions. This pair also catalyzed hydration half-reactions using citraconate and maleate. Another broad-specificity enzyme, isopropylmalate dehydrogenase (MJ0720), catalyzed the oxidative decarboxylation of ␤-isopropylmalate, ␤-methylmalate, and D-malate. Combined with these results, phylogenetic analysis suggests that the pyruvate pathway to 2-oxobutyrate (an alternative to threonine dehydratase in isoleucine biosynthesis) evolved several times in bacteria and archaea. The enzymes in the isopropylmalate pathway of leucine biosynthesis facilitated the evolution of 2-oxobutyrate biosynthesis through the introduction of a citramalate synthase, either by gene recruitment or gene duplication and functional divergence.

Homoaconitase enzymes catalyze hydrolyase reactions in the ␣-aminoadipate pathway for lysine biosynthesis or the 2-oxosuberate pathway for methanogenic coenzyme B biosynthesis. Despite the homology of this iron-sulfur protein to aconitase, previously studied homoaconitases catalyze only the hydration of cis-homoaconitate to form homoisocitrate rather than the complete isomerization of homocitrate to homoisocitrate. The MJ1003 and MJ1271 proteins from the methanogen Methanocaldococcus jannaschii formed the first homoaconitase shown to catalyze both the dehydration of (R)-homocitrate to form cishomoaconitate, and its hydration is shown to produce homoisocitrate. This heterotetrameric enzyme also used the analogous longer chain substrates cis-(homo) 2 aconitate, cis-(homo) 3 aconitate, and cis-(homo) 4 aconitate, all with similar specificities. A combination of the homoaconitase with the M. jannaschii homoisocitrate dehydrogenase catalyzed all of the isomerization and oxidative decarboxylation reactions required to form 2-oxoadipate, 2-oxopimelate, and 2-oxosuberate, completing three iterations of the 2-oxoacid elongation pathway. Methanogenic archaeal homoaconitases and fungal homoaconitases evolved in parallel in the aconitase superfamily. The archaeal homoaconitases share a common ancestor with isopropylmalate isomerases, and both enzymes catalyzed the hydration of the minimal substrate maleate to form D-malate. The variation in substrate specificity among these enzymes correlated with the amino acid sequences of a flexible loop in the small subunits.

Iron-sulfur clusters may have been the earliest catalytic cofactors on earth, and most modern organisms use them extensively. Although members of the Archaea produce numerous iron-sulfur proteins, the major cluster assembly proteins found in the Bacteria and Eukarya are not universally conserved in archaea. Free-living archaea do have homologs of the bacterial apbC and eukaryotic NBP35 genes that encode iron-sulfur cluster carrier proteins. This study exploits the genetic system of Salmonella enterica to examine the in vivo functionality of apbC/NBP35 homologs from three archaea: Methanococcus maripaludis, Methanocaldococcus jannaschii, and Sulfolobus solfataricus. All three archaeal homologs could correct the tricarballylate growth defect of an S. enterica apbC mutant. Additional genetic studies showed that the conserved Walker box serine and the Cys-X-X-Cys motif of the M. maripaludis MMP0704 protein were both required for function in vivo but that the amino-terminal ferredoxin domain was not. MMP0704 protein and an MMP0704 variant protein missing the N-terminal ferredoxin domain were purified, and the Fe-S clusters were chemically reconstituted. Both proteins bound equimolar concentrations of Fe and S and had UV-visible spectra similar to those of known [4Fe-4S] cluster-containing proteins. This family of dimeric iron-sulfur carrier proteins evolved before the archaeal and eukaryal lineages diverged, representing an ancient mode of cluster assembly.

The aconitase family of hydro-lyase enzymes includes three classes of proteins that catalyze the isomerization of alpha-hydroxy acids to beta-hydroxy acids. Besides aconitase, isopropylmalate isomerase (IPMI) proteins specifically catalyze the isomerization of alpha,beta-dicarboxylates with hydrophobic gamma-chain groups, and homoaconitase (HACN) proteins catalyze the isomerization of tricarboxylates with variable chain length gamma-carboxylate groups. These enzymes' stereospecific hydro-lyase activities make them attractive catalysts to produce diastereomers from unsaturated precursors. However, sequence similarity and convergent evolution among these proteins lead to widespread misannotation and uncertainty about gene function. To find the substrate specificity determinants of homologous IPMI and HACN proteins from Methanocaldococcus jannaschii, the small-subunit HACN protein (MJ1271) was crystallized for X-ray diffraction. The structural model showed characteristic residues in a flexible loop region between alpha2 and alpha3 that distinguish HACN from IPMI and aconitase proteins. Site-directed mutagenesis of MJ1271 produced loop-region variant proteins that were reconstituted with wild-type MJ1003 large-subunit protein. The heteromers formed promiscuous hydro-lyases with reduced activity but broader substrate specificity. Both R26K and R26V variants formed relatively efficient IPMI enzymes, while the T27A variant had uniformly lower specificity constants for both IPMI and HACN substrates. The R26V T27Y variant resembles the MJ1277 IPMI small subunit in its flexible loop sequence but demonstrated the broad substrate specificity of the R26V variant. These mutations may reverse the evolution of HACN activity from an ancestral IPMI gene, demonstrating the evolutionary potential for promiscuity in hydro-lyase enzymes. Understanding these specificity determinants enables the functional reannotation of paralogous HACN and IPMI genes in numerous genome sequences. These structural and kinetic results will help to engineer new stereospecific hydro-lyase enzymes for chemoenzymatic syntheses.