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Updated: Jun 13, 2026

A High-Throughput Enzyme-Coupled Activity Assay to Probe Small Molecule Interaction with the dNTPase SAMHD1
Published on: April 16, 2021
NirJ, a radical SAM family member of the d1 heme biogenesis cluster
Amanda A Brindley1, Richard Zajicek, Martin J Warren
1Department of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK.
Abstract:
NirJ is involved in the transformation of precorrin-2 into heme d(1), although its precise role in the process has not been established. The purified protein was found to contain a 4Fe-4S centre, in line with the prediction that it belongs to the radical SAM class of enzymes. This was further confirmed by binding of S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) to dithionite-reduced NirJ, which resulted in a decrease in the signal intensity and in a shift to higher field of the [4Fe-4S](1+) EPR signal. Significantly, though, this approach also led to the appearance of a small but reproducible organic radical signal that was associated with about 2% of the NirJ molecules and was affected by the incorporation of SAM deuterated at the 5' adenosyl group.
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