Spectroscopic and computational studies of reversible O binding by a cobalt complex of relevance to cysteine dioxygenase.

The substitution of non-native metal ions into metalloenzyme active sites is a common strategy for gaining insights into enzymatic structure and function. For some nonheme iron dioxygenases, replacement of the Fe(ii) center with a redox-active, divalent transition metal (e.g., Mn, Co, Ni, Cu) gives rise to an enzyme with equal or greater activity than the wild-type enzyme. In this manuscript, we apply this metal-substitution approach to synthetic models of the enzyme cysteine dioxygenase (CDO). CDO is a nonheme iron dioxygenase that initiates the catabolism of l-cysteine by converting this amino acid to the corresponding sulfinic acid. Two mononuclear Co(ii) complexes (3 and 4) have been prepared with the general formula [Co(Tp)(CysOEt)] (R = Ph (3) or Me (4); Tp = hydrotris(pyrazol-1-yl)borate substituted with R-groups at the 3- and 5-positions, and CysOEt is the anion of l-cysteine ethyl ester). These Co(ii) complexes mimic the active-site structure of substrate-bound CDO and are analogous to functional iron-based CDO models previously reported in the literature. Characterization with X-ray crystallography and/or H NMR spectroscopy revealed that 3 and 4 possess five-coordinate structures featuring facially-coordinating Tp and S,N-bidentate CysOEt ligands. The electronic properties of these high-spin (S = 3/2) complexes were interrogated with UV-visible absorption and X-band electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopies. The air-stable nature of complex 3 replicates the inactivity of cobalt-substituted CDO. In contrast, complex 4 reversibly binds O at reduced temperatures to yield an orange chromophore (4-O). Spectroscopic (EPR, resonance Raman) and computational (density functional theory, DFT) analyses indicate that 4-O is a S = 1/2 species featuring a low-spin Co(iii) center bound to an end-on (η) superoxo ligand. DFT calculations were used to evaluate the energetics of key steps in the reaction mechanism. Collectively, these results have elucidated the role of electronic factors (e.g., spin-state, d-electron count, metal-ligand covalency) in facilitating O activation and S-dioxygenation in CDO and related models.