Keynote Talk 21st International Conference on Biological Inorganic Chemistry 2025

New turns in bioinspired dicopper/dioxygen chemistry (121874)

Franc Meyer 1
  1. Georg-August-University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

For controlling the activation of O2 and its subsequent coupled multielectron/multiproton transformations, some enzymes take advantage of the cooperative action of two (or more) proximate metal ions hosted within the protein active site. Understanding the functional principles of nature’s sophisticated blueprints provides great inspiration for the development of novel bioinspired systems enabling oxidation/oxygenation catalysis with O2.1 Metal ion spin states as well as spin state changes are important factors for determining the reactivity and selectivity of both metalloenzymes and synthetic catalysts. This presentation will discuss spin state effects and spin dependent reaction trajectories in model systems of prominent coupled dicopper metalloproteins. Specifically, the presentation will show structural snapshots of the O2 binding event relevant to biological type 3 dicopper sites; unusual interactions of Cu2/O2 intermediates with Lewis acids; proton- and redox-mediated interconversions between, and equilibria of, different Cu2/O2 species; as well as a disentangling of PCET thermochemistry and kinetics.2-9

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