Department of Biochemistry, 417 Roger Adams Laboratory, 600 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, United States of America.
Biochim Biophys Acta Bioenerg. 2021 Aug 1;1862(8):148417. doi: 10.1016/j.bbabio.2021.148417. Epub 2021 Mar 18.
On looking back at a lifetime of research, it is interesting to see, in the light of current progress, how things came to be, and to speculate on how things might be. I am delighted in the context of the Mitchell prize to have that excuse to present this necessarily personal view of developments in areas of my interests. I have focused on the Q-cycle and a few examples showing wider ramifications, since that had been the main interest of the lab in the 20 years since structures became available, - a watershed event in determining our molecular perspective. I have reviewed the evidence for our model for the mechanism of the first electron transfer of the bifurcated reaction at the Q-site, which I think is compelling. In reviewing progress in understanding the second electron transfer, I have revisited some controversies to justify important conclusions which appear, from the literature, not to have been taken seriously. I hope this does not come over as nitpicking. The conclusions are important to the final section in which I develop an internally consistent mechanism for turnovers of the complex leading to a state similar to that observed in recent rapid-mix/freeze-quench experiments, reported three years ago. The final model is necessarily speculative but is open to test.
回顾一生的研究，有趣的是，从当前的进展来看，事物是如何发展的，并推测事物可能会如何发展。我很高兴能以米切尔奖为契机，从个人角度介绍我感兴趣的领域的发展情况。我主要关注 Q 循环和几个具有更广泛影响的例子，因为这是实验室在有结构可用的 20 年里的主要关注点，这是决定我们分子视角的分水岭事件。我回顾了我们关于 Q 位点分岔反应第一个电子转移机制的模型的证据，我认为这是令人信服的。在回顾对第二个电子转移的理解进展时，我重新探讨了一些争议，以证明一些重要的结论，这些结论似乎并没有被文献认真对待。我希望这不会被视为吹毛求疵。这些结论对于最后一部分很重要，在最后一部分中，我提出了一个复杂的循环机制，该机制导致类似于最近快速混合/冷冻淬火实验中观察到的状态，这一实验结果在三年前就已经报道过。最终的模型是推测性的，但可以接受测试。
