Activation of CO2 by Vanadium Nitrogenase

Abstract

The reduction of CO₂ into useful products, including hydrocarbon fuels, is an ongoing area of particular interest due to efforts to mitigate buildup of this greenhouse gas. While the industrial Fischer-Tropsch process can facilitate the hydrogenation of CO₂ with H₂ to form short-chain hydrocarbon products under high temperatures and pressures, a desire to perform these reactions under ambient conditions has inspired the use of biological approaches. Particularly, enzymes offer insight into how to activate and reduce CO₂ , but only one enzyme, nitrogenase, can perform the multielectron, multiproton reduction of CO₂ into hydrocarbons. The vanadium-containing variant, V-nitrogenase, displays especial reactivity towards the hydrogenation of CO and CO₂ . This Focus Review discusses recent progress towards the activation and reduction of CO₂ with three primary V-nitrogenase systems. These systems span both ATP-dependent and ATP-independent processes and utilize approaches with whole cells, isolated proteins, and extracted cofactors.

Keywords: ATP-independent; CO2; nitrogenase; reduction; vanadium.