Through the anaerobic chromatography on the columns of DEAE 52, Q-Sepharose and Sephacryl S-200, a nitrogenase MoFe protein (?nifZ Av1) was obtained from a nifZ deleted mutant of Azotobacter vinelandii (stain DJ194). The results of Western blotting after anoxic native electro-phoresis and SDS-PAGE showed that ?nifZ Av1 was similar to wild type MoFe protein (OP Av1) at the electrophoretic mobility, molecular weight and subunit composition. Fur-thermore, ?nifZ Av1 was also similar to OP Av1 at the mo-lybdenum content, EPR signal (g≈4.3, 3.65 and 2.01), and the molar extinction coefficient (?ε) of circular dichroism (CD) at 660 nm region. All of these indicated that, besides having the same α2β2 composition as OP Av1, the ?nifZ Av1 also contained equal amount of reductive FeMoco in the spin state of S=3/2 to OP Av1. However, the iron content and sub-strate (C2H2, H+ and N2)-reduction activity of ?nifZ Av1 were 74% and 46%―50% of those of OP Av1, respectively. Fur-thermore, the ?ε at around 450 nm, which reflects P-cluster in Av1, was obviously lower than that of OP Av1. It suggested that the difference between ?nifZ Av1 and OP Av1 resulted from P-cluster rather than FeMoco, and from the half num-ber of P-cluster in ?nifZ Av1, but the composition or redox state of P-cluster in ?nifZ Av1 were not changed. Thus it could propose that ?nifZ Av1 is composed of two different αβ subunit pairs. One is a FeMoco- and P-cluster-containing pair, and the other is a P-cluster-deficient but FeMoco-con- taining pair. Since the deletion of nifZ gene leads to the defi-ciency of only one of two P-clusters in a α2β2 tetramer, the assembly of P-cluster may not simply depend on one gene product, and so a possible mechanism of NifZ is supposed here.
A MoFe protein (ΔnifE Av1) with a purity of ～80% was purified from a nifE-deleted mutant of Azotobacter vinelandii DJ35. Compared with MoFe protein purified from wild-type strain OP (OP Av1), ΔnifE Av1 had the same subunits composition, and had immune reaction with antibody to OP Av1, but its relative mobility in anaerobic native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) was a little larger than that of OP Av1. Metal analysis showed that Mo and Fe contents of ΔnifE Av1 both apparently decreased. When complemented with OP Fe protein, ΔnifE Av1 had no C2H2-reduction activity, but it could be in vitro activated by FeMoco extracted from OP Av1. The circular dichroism (CD) spectrum of ΔnifE Av1 at ~450 nm was similar to that of OP Av1, while the EPR signal at g≈3.7 was absolutely silent, and the signal intensities at g≈4.3 and 2.0 decreased by 75% and 50%, respectively. The results indicated that ΔnifE Av1 purified from DJ35 was a FeMoco-deficient but P-cluster-con- taining MoFe protein.
