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Old dogs, new tricks: New insights into the iron/manganese superoxide dismutase family
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Old dogs, new tricks: New insights into the iron/manganese superoxide dismutase family

Katie A. Frye, Kacper M. Sendra, Kevin J. Waldron and Thomas E. Kehl-Fie
Journal of inorganic biochemistry, Vol.230, pp.111748-111748
05/01/2022
DOI: 10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2022.111748
PMCID: PMC9112591
PMID: 35151099
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2022.111748View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Superoxide dismutases (SODs) are ancient enzymes of widespread importance present in all domains of life. Many insights have been gained into these important enzymes over the 50 years since their initial description, but recent studies in the context of microbial pathogenesis have resulted in findings that challenge long established dogmas. The repertoire of SODs that bacterial pathogens encode is diverse both in number and in metal dependencies, including copper, copper and zinc, manganese, iron, and cambialistic enzymes. Other bacteria also possess nickel dependent SODs. Compartmentalization of SODs only partially explains their diversity. The need for pathogens to maintain SOD activity across distinct hostile environments encountered during infection, including those limited for essential metals, is also a driver of repertoire diversity. SOD research using pathogenic microbes has also revealed the apparent biochemical ease with which metal specificity can change within the most common family of SODs. Collectively, these studies are revealing the dynamic nature of SOD evolution, both that of individual SOD enzymes that can change their metal specificity to adapt to fluctuating cellular metal availability, and of a cell's repertoire of SOD isozymes that can be differentially expressed to adapt to fluctuating environmental metal availability in a niche. While these enzymes have been studied for decades, investigating the contribution of superoxide dismutases to microbial pathogenesis has challenged old paradigms and revealed previously unappreciated diversity in metal utilization, organismal repertoire, and evolution. [Display omitted] •Fe/Mn superoxide dismutases can use iron, manganese, or both metals for function.•Metal specificity in the Fe/Mn superoxide dismutase family is a spectrum.•Metal availability can shape an organism's superoxide dismutase repertoire.•Distinct clades exist within the Fe/Mn superoxide dismutase family.•The metal specificity of an Fe/Mn superoxide dismutase can evolutionarily change.
 Evolution Iron Manganese Metal specificity Metalloenzymes Pathogenesis Superoxide dismutase (SOD)

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