QM/MM study on the O₂ activation reaction of 4-hydroxylphenyl pyruvate dioxygenase reveals a common mechanism for α-ketoglutarate dependent dioxygenase

The dioxygen activation catalyzed by 4-hydorxylphenyl pyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD) were reinvestigated by using hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) approaches at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p):AMBER level. These studies showed that this reaction consisted of two steps including the dioxygen addition/decarboxylation and hetero O[sbnd]O bond cleavage, where the first step was found to be rate-determining. The former step initially runs on a septet potential energy surface (PES), then switches to a quintet PES after crossing a septet/quintet minimum energy crossing point (MECP) ^5-7M2, whereas the rest step runs on the quintet PES. The reliability of our theoretical predictions is supported by the excellent agreement of the calculated free-energy barrier value of 16.9 kcal/mol with available experimental value of 16–17 kcal/mol. The present study challenges the widely accepted view which holds that the O₂ activation catalyzed by α-keto glutamate (α-KG) dioxygenase mainly runs on the quintet PES and provides new insight into the catalytic mechanism of α-KG dioxygenase and/or other related Fe(II)-dependent oxygenase.