A non-haem iron centre in the transcription factor NorR senses nitric oxide

Benoît D'Autréaux, Nicholas P. Tucker, Ray Dixon () and Stephen Spiro ()
Additional contact information
Benoît D'Autréaux: John Innes Centre, Colney
Nicholas P. Tucker: John Innes Centre, Colney
Ray Dixon: John Innes Centre, Colney
Stephen Spiro: Georgia Institute of Technology

Nature, 2005, vol. 437, issue 7059, 769-772

Abstract: Abstract Nitric oxide (NO), synthesized in eukaryotes by the NO synthases, has multiple roles in signalling pathways and in protection against pathogens1,2. Pathogenic microorganisms have apparently evolved defence mechanisms that counteract the effects of NO and related reactive nitrogen species. Regulatory proteins that sense NO mediate the primary response to NO and nitrosative stress3,4,5,6,7,8,9. The only regulatory protein in enteric bacteria known to serve exclusively as an NO-responsive transcription factor is the enhancer binding protein NorR (refs 9, 10–11). In Escherichia coli, NorR activates the transcription of the norVW genes encoding a flavorubredoxin (FlRd) and an associated flavoprotein, respectively, which together have NADH-dependent NO reductase activity10,12,13,14. The NO-responsive activity of NorR raises important questions concerning the mechanism of NO sensing. Here we show that the regulatory domain of NorR contains a mononuclear non-haem iron centre, which reversibly binds NO. Binding of NO stimulates the ATPase activity of NorR, enabling the activation of transcription by RNA polymerase. The mechanism of NorR reveals an unprecedented biological role for a non-haem mononitrosyl–iron complex in NO sensing.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03953 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:437:y:2005:i:7059:d:10.1038_nature03953

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

DOI: 10.1038/nature03953

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 ().