{"doi":"10.1016/j.jbc.2024.107900","title":"Azotobacter vinelandii scaffold protein NifU transfers iron to NifQ as part of the iron-molybdenum cofactor biosynthesis pathway for nitrogenase","abstract":"The Azotobacter vinelandii molybdenum nitrogenase obtains molybdenum from NifQ, a monomeric iron-sulfur molybdoprotein. This protein requires an existing [Fe-S] cluster to form a [Mo-Fe 3 -S 4 ] group, which acts as a specific molybdenum donor during nitrogenase FeMo-co biosynthesis. Here, we show biochemical evidence supporting the role of NifU as the [Fe-S] cluster donor. Protein-protein interaction studies involving apo-NifQ and as-isolated NifU demonstrated their interaction, which was only effective when NifQ lacked its [Fe-S] cluster. Incubation of apo-NifQ with [Fe 4 -S 4 ]-loaded NifU increased the iron content of the former, contingent on both proteins being able to interact with one another. As a result of this interaction, a [Fe 4 -S 4 ] cluster was transferred from NifU to NifQ. In A. vinelandii , NifQ was preferentially metalated by NifU rather than by the [Fe-S] cluster scaffold protein IscU. These results indicate the necessity of co-expressing NifU and NifQ to efficiently provide molybdenum for FeMo-co biosynthesis when engineering nitrogenase in plants.","journal":"Journal of Biological Chemistry","year":2024,"id":450824,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9524,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1271803,"name":"Juan Andrés Collantes-García","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1271308,"name":"Elena Rosa‐Núñez","orcid":"0009-0007-5114-9429","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1061763,"name":"Jin Xiong","orcid":"0000-0001-7443-0554","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1271309,"name":"Xi Jiang","orcid":"0000-0002-1819-9041","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1271310,"name":"Emilio Jiménez‐Vicente","orcid":"0000-0002-3347-3096","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1271311,"name":"Carlos Echávarri‐Erasun","orcid":"0000-0001-8363-5199","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":777300,"name":"Yisong Guo","orcid":"0000-0002-4132-3565","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":780277,"name":"Luis M. Rubio","orcid":"0000-0003-1596-2475","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":388652,"name":"Manuel González‐Guerrero","orcid":"0000-0001-7334-5286","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1271307,"name":"Emma Barahona","orcid":"0000-0002-9842-2185","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":39,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:02:28.969209Z","pmid":"39442618","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}