The principles of natural protein engineering are obscured by overlapping functions and complexity accumulated through natural selection and evolution. Completely artificial proteins offer a clean slate on which to define and test these protein engineering principles, while recreating and extending natural functions. Here we introduce this method with the design of an oxygen transport protein, akin to human neuroglobin. Beginning with a simple and unnatural helix-forming sequence with just three different amino acids, we assembled a four-helix bundle, positioned histidines to bis-histidine ligate haems, and exploited helical rotation and glutamate burial on haem binding to introduce distal histidine strain and facilitate O₂ binding. For stable oxygen binding without haem oxidation, water is excluded by simple packing of the protein interior and loops that reduce helical-interface mobility. O₂ affinities and exchange timescales match natural globins with distal histidines, with the remarkable exception that O₂ binds tighter than CO.

The crystal structure of the nitroreductase enzyme from Enterobacter cloacae has been determined for the oxidized form in separate complexes with benzoate and acetate inhibitors and for the two-electron reduced form. Nitroreductase is a member of a group of enzymes that reduce a broad range of nitroaromatic compounds and has potential uses in chemotherapy and bioremediation. The monomers of the nitroreductase dimer adopt an alpha+beta fold and together bind two flavin mononucleotide prosthetic groups at the dimer interface. In the oxidized enzyme, the flavin ring system adopts a strongly bent (16 degrees ) conformation, and the bend increases (25 degrees ) in the reduced form of the enzyme, roughly the conformation predicted for reduced flavin free in solution. Because free oxidized flavin is planar, the induced bend in the oxidized enzyme may favor reduction, and it may also account for the characteristic inability of the enzyme to stabilize the one electron-reduced semiquinone flavin, which is also planar. Both inhibitors bind over the pyrimidine and central rings of the flavin in partially overlapping sites. Comparison of the two inhibitor complexes shows that a portion of helix H6 can flex to accommodate the differently sized inhibitors suggesting a mechanism for accommodating varied substrates.

Enterobacter cloacae nitroreductase (NR) is a flavoprotein which catalyzes the pyridine nucleotide-dependent reduction of nitroaromatics. Initial velocity and inhibition studies have been performed which establish unambiguously a ping-pong kinetic mechanism. NADH oxidation proceeds stereospecifically with the transfer of the pro-R hydrogen to the enzyme and the amide moiety of the nicotinamide appears to be the principal mediator of the interaction between NR and NADH. 2,4-Dinitrotoluene is the most efficient oxidizing substrate examined, with a kcat/KM an order of magnitude higher than those of p-nitrobenzoate, FMN, FAD or riboflavin. Dicoumarol is a potent inhibitor competitive vs. NADH with a Ki of 62 nM. Several compounds containing a carboxyl group are also competitive inhibitors vs. NADH. Yonetani-Theorell analysis of dicoumarol and acetate inhibition indicates that their binding is mutually exclusive, which suggests that the two inhibitors bind to the same site on the enzyme. NAD+ does not exhibit product inhibition and in the absence of an electron acceptor, no isotope exchange between NADH and 32P-NAD+ could be detected. NR catalyzes the 4-electron reduction of nitrobenzene to hydroxylaminobenzene with no optically detectable net formation of the putative two-electron intermediate nitrosobenzene.

One of the principal successes of de novo protein design has been the creation of small, robust protein-cofactor complexes which can serve as simplified models, or maquettes, of more complicated multicofactor protein complexes commonly found in nature. Different maquettes, generated by us and others, recreate a variety of aspects, or functional elements, recognized as parts of natural enzyme function. The current challenge is to both expand the palette of functional elements and combine and/or integrate them in recreating familiar enzyme activities or generating novel catalysis in the simplest protein scaffolds.