Identification and characterization of archaeal and bacterial F420-dependent thioredoxin reductases

The thioredoxin pathway is an antioxidant system present in most organisms. Electrons flow from a thioredoxin reductase to thioredoxin at the expense of a specific electron donor. Most known thioredoxin reductases rely on NADPH as reducing cofactor. Yet, in 2016 a new type of thioredoxin reductase was discovered in archaea which utilizes instead a reduced deazaflavin cofactor (F 420 H 2 ). For this reason, the respective enzyme was named deazaflavin-dependent flavin-containing thioredoxin reductase (DFTR). To have a broader understanding of the biochemistry of DFTRs, we identified and characterized two other archaeal representatives. A detailed kinetic study, which included pre-steady state kinetic analyses, revealed these two DFTRs are highly specific for F 420 H 2 while displaying marginal activity with NADPH. Nevertheless, they share mechanistic features with the canonical thioredoxin reductases that dependent on NADPH (NTRs). A detailed structural analysis led the identification of two key residues that tune cofactor specificity of DFTRs. This allowed us to propose a DFTR-specific sequence motif that enabled for the first time the identification and experimental characterization of a bacterial DFTR.