Deconvolution of reduction potentials of formate dehydrogenase from Cupriavidus necator

The formate dehydrogenase enzyme from Cupriavidus necator (FdsABG) carries out the two-electron oxidation of formate to CO2, but is also capable of reducing CO2 back to formate, a potential biofuel. FdsABG is a heterotrimeric enzyme that performs this transformation using nine redox-active cofactors: a bis(molybdopterin guanine dinucleotide) (bis-MGD) at the active site coupled to seven iron–sulfur clusters, and one equivalent of flavin mononucleotide (FMN). To better understand the pathway of electron flow in FdsABG, the reduction potentials of the various cofactors were examined through direct electrochemistry. Given the redundancy of cofactors, a truncated form of the FdsA subunit was developed that possesses only the bis-MGD active site and a singular [4Fe–4S] cluster. Electrochemical characterization of FdsABG compared to truncated FdsA shows that the measured reduction potentials are remarkably similar despite the truncation with two observable features at − 265 mV and − 455 mV vs SHE, indicating that the voltammetry of the truncated enzyme is representative of the reduction potentials of the intact heterotrimer. By producing truncated FdsA without the necessary maturation factors required for bis-MGD insertion, a form of the truncated FdsA that possesses only the [4Fe–4S] was produced, which gives a single voltammetric feature at − 525 mV, allowing the contributions of the molybdenum cofactor to be associated with the observed feature at − 265 mV. This method allowed for the deconvolution of reduction potentials for an enzyme with highly complex cofactor content to know more about the thermodynamic landscape of catalysis.