We have purified an NADH-dependent ferredoxin reductase from crude extracts of Streptomyces griseus cells grown in soybean flour-enriched medium. The purified protein has a molecular weight of 60,000 as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate gel electrophoresis. The enzyme requires Mg21 ion for catalytic activity in reconstituted assays, and its spectral properties resemble those of many other flavin adenine dinucleotidecontaining flavoproteins. A relatively large number of hydrophobic amino acid residues are found by amino acid analysis, and beginning with residue 7, a consensus flavin adenine dinucleotide binding sequence, GXGXXGXXXA, is revealed in this protein. In the presence of NADH, the ferredoxin reductase reduces various electron acceptors such as cytochrome c, potassium ferricyanide, dichlorophenolindophenol, and nitroblue tetrazolium. However, only cytochrome c reduction by the ferredoxin reductase is enhanced by the addition of ferredoxin. In the presence of NADH, S. griseus ferredoxin and cytochrome P-450s,y, the ferredoxin reductase mediates 0 dealkylation of 7-ethoxycoumarin.Microbial cytochrome P-450 systems are usually multicomponent systems and require the presence of a ferredoxin reductase and a ferredoxin to couple electron flow from NAD(P)H to the terminal cytochrome P-450 component. To date, of the microbial cytochrome P-450 systems reported, only the barbiturate-induced cytochrome P-450 system of Bacillus megaterium (ATCC 14581) is self-sufficient and does not require the intermediacy of other redox components (18). In contrast with the cytochromes P-450 and ferredoxins, only a few ferredoxin reductases of microbial cytochrome P-450 systems have been purified and characterized because of their unstable nature and the relatively low level of expression. These examples include ferredoxin reductases of Pseudomonas putida (PA450cam and P-4501j.) (14,21,22,38,39), B. megaterium (P-450meg; ATCC 13368) (2, 9), and Saccharopolyspora erythraea (31). In the cytochrome P-450cam system, the putidaredoxin reductase level is about eight times less than that of cytochrome P-450cam and putidaredoxin (21,22). The ferredoxin reductase of the cytochrome P-450 system of another actinomycete, a Nocardia sp. (5), is also extremely unstable and was only partially purified.Previous studies in this laboratory have indicated that the soybean flour-induced cytochrome P-450S.Y from Streptomyces griseus resembles its mammalian counterparts in oxidizing a diverse array of xenobiotics (24,26,28,29,35). The reactions catalyzed include aromatic, cyclic, and aliphatic hydroxylation; 0, S, and N oxidations; C-C fission; epoxidation; and 0 and N dealkylations. This enzymatic system also mimics rat liver microsomes in activating a variety of promutagenic chemicals (27). We have previously reported the isolation and characterization of the cytochrome P-450S.Y (36) and S. griseus 7Fe ferredoxin (33, 34) from extracts of S. griseus cells grown in * Corresponding author.t Present address: