Role of the B component of methylosinus trichosporium OB3B methane monooxygenase

Methane monooxygenase (MMO) is a three-component enzyme that catalyzes the reaction of methane with oxygen to form methanol. Through site-directed mutagenesis and spectroscopies, the disordered C-terminus of MMOB is shown to be required for efficient catalysis and the formation of a key peroxo intermediate or its precursor. The deletion of the entire C-terminal segment perturbed the electronic environment of the active site in the hydroxylase component (MMOH), suggesting that C-terminus is likely to be located in or near the interaction interfaces between MMOH and MMOB. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 228th ACS National Meeting (Philadelphia, PA 8/22-26/2004).