Ascaris haemoglobin is a nitric oxide-activated ‘deoxygenase’

Dena M. Minning, Andrew J. Gow, Joseph Bonaventura, Rod Braun, Mark Dewhirst, Daniel E. Goldberg and Jonathan S. Stamler
Additional contact information
Dena M. Minning: Washington University School of Medicine
Andrew J. Gow: Washington University School of Medicine
Joseph Bonaventura: Duke University Medical Center
Rod Braun: Department of Medicine
Mark Dewhirst: Department of Medicine
Jonathan S. Stamler: Howard Hughes Medical Institute,

Nature, 1999, vol. 401, issue 6752, 497-502

Abstract: Abstract The parasitic nematode Ascaris lumbricoides infects one billion people worldwide. Its perienteric fluid contains an octameric haemoglobin1,2,3 that binds oxygen nearly 25,000 times more tightly than does human haemoglobin4,5. Despite numerous investigations, the biological function of this molecule has remained elusive. The distal haem pocket contains a metal, oxygen and thiol6, all of which are known to be reactive with nitric oxide. Here we show that Ascaris haemoglobin enzymatically consumes oxygen in a reaction driven by nitric oxide, thus keeping the perienteric fluid hypoxic. The mechanism of this reaction involves unprecedented chemistry of a haem group, a thiol and nitric oxide. We propose that Ascaris haemoglobin functions as a ‘deoxygenase’, using nitric oxide to detoxify oxygen. The structural and functional adaptations of Ascaris haemoglobin suggest that the molecular evolution of haemoglobin can be rationalized by its nitric oxide related functions.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/46822 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:401:y:1999:i:6752:d:10.1038_46822

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/46822

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().