Ferredoxin—nitrate reductase

In enzymology, a ferredoxin—nitrate reductase (EC 1.7.7.2) is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction

nitrite + H₂O + 2 oxidized ferredoxin ${\displaystyle \rightleftharpoons }$ nitrate + 2 reduced ferredoxin + 2 H⁺

ferredoxin—nitrate reductase
Identifiers
EC no.	1.7.7.2
CAS no.	60382-69-6
Databases
IntEnz	IntEnz view
BRENDA	BRENDA entry
ExPASy	NiceZyme view
KEGG	KEGG entry
MetaCyc	metabolic pathway
PRIAM	profile
PDB structures	RCSB PDB PDBe PDBsum
Gene Ontology	AmiGO / QuickGO
Search PMC articles PubMed articles NCBI proteins

The 3 substrates of this enzyme are nitrite, H₂O, and oxidized ferredoxin, whereas its 3 products are nitrate, reduced ferredoxin, and H⁺. Nitrate Reductase is an essential enzyme present in most biological systems such as green plants, certain fungi, yeasts and bacteria that aids in the reduction of nitrate to ammonium.^[1]

This enzyme belongs to the family of oxidoreductases, specifically those acting on other nitrogenous compounds as donors with an iron-sulfur protein as acceptor. The systematic name of this enzyme class is nitrite:ferredoxin oxidoreductase. Other names in common use include assimilatory nitrate reductase, nitrate (ferredoxin) reductase, and assimilatory ferredoxin-nitrate reductase. This enzyme participates in nitrogen metabolism. It has 4 cofactors: iron, Sulfur, Molybdenum, and Iron-sulfur. The Iron-Sulfur cluster ([4FE-4S]) in this enzyme has a variety of different functions that contribute to the growth of aerobic cells. Some of the functions include but are not limited to the following: involved in photosynthetic processes, electron-transfer reactions and the binding of certain substrates, resulting in activation.^[2]

Structural studies

As of late 2007, only one structure has been solved for this class of enzymes, with the PDB accession code 1PFD.