Purification and some properties of ubiquinol oxidase from obligately chemolithotrophic iron-oxidizing bacterium, Thiobacillus ferrooxidans NASF-1

Ubiquinol-oxidizing activity was detected in an acidophilic chemolithotrophic iron-oxidizing bacterium, T. ferrooxidans. The ubiquinol oxidase was purified 79-fold from plasma membranes of T. ferrooxidans NASF-1 cells. The purified oxidase is composed of two polypeptides with apparent molecular masses of 32,600 and 50,100 Da, as measured by gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate. The absorption spectrum of the reduced enzyme at room temperature showed big peaks at 530 and 563, and a small broad peak at 635 nm, indicating the involvement of cytochromes b and d. Characteristic peaks of cytochromes a and c were not observed in the spectrum at around 600 and 550 nm, respectively. This enzyme combined with CO, and its CO-reduced minus reduced difference spectrum showed peaks at 409 nm and 563 nm and a trough at 431 nm. These results indicated that the oxidase contained cytochrome b, but the involvement of cytochrome d was not clear. The enzyme catalyzed the oxidations of ubiquinol-2 and reduced N,N,N',N'-tetramethyl-p-phenylenediamine dihydrochloride. The ubiquinol oxidase activity was activated by the addition of albumin and lecithin to the reaction mixture and inhibited by the respiratory inhibitors KCN, HQNO, NaN3, and antimycin A1, although the enzyme was relatively resistant to KCN, and the divalent cation, Zn2+, compared with ubiquinol oxidases of E. coli.