2,5-DKCMO is notable for being the O
2-dependent activity that serves a key role in triggering the initial ring-opening step in the pathway of bicyclic (+)-camphor catabolism. Additionally, it has one indisputable claim to fame. It was the first enzyme reported to function as a biological Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenase (BVMO, [
17,
18,
19]). BVMOs are so named because they biooxygenate ketones into corresponding lactones/esters, a transformation directly equivalent to the peracid-catalysed chemical reaction first reported by Adolf Baeyer and Victor Villiger in 1899 [
20]. Although the lactonization by various bacteria and fungi of the D-ring of 4-androstene-3,17-dione to testololactone had been recognised by 1953 [
21,
22], the nature of the enzyme(s) responsible remained uncharacterised for several more years. Then subsequently, definitive proof of the role of molecular oxygen in another microbial lactonization, the initial ring-opening step of camphor degradation by
P. putida ATCC 17453, was obtained in late 1961 by Irwin Gunsalus at the University of Illinois [
23]. He confirmed that a cell-free extract prepared from the (+)-camphor-grown bacterium biotransformed 2,5-diketocamphane (2,5-DKC) into the corresponding 2-oxa-lactone (
Figure 2, [
16]) ‘only when the extract was supplemented with NADH in the presence of oxygen’. Gunsalus initially used the term ‘ketolactonase, an enzyme for cyclic lactonization’ to describe the detected O
2-dependent monooxygenase activity which is currently assigned as EC 1.14.14.108.
Triggered by this initial observed outcome, Gunsalus then focussed his attention on establishing in more detail the mode of action of the ketolactonase that resulted in it being able to catalyse the spin-forbidden O
2-dependent biotransformation of the DKC enantiomer. At the time, the precedents set by the prior research of Theorell [
6], Hayashi [
7], Mason [
8], and Klingenberg [
24] with other O
2-dependent enzymes had identified a number of alternative cofactor- dependent strategies for enabling inert molecular oxygen to participate in one electron-state biochemistry, listed in
Table 1. The then current protocols for discriminating between these alternative possibilities were based on either characteristic absorbance spectra (both flavin nucleotide- and heme iron-dependent enzymes), or the effect of metal chelating agents (iron- and copper-dependent enzymes, [
25]). Also used were some electron acceptors such as methylene blue and dichlorophenolindophenol which had been used to indirectly signal the involvement of a flavin nucleotide in the action of Old Yellow Enzyme [
6]. Compared to more modern analytical methodologies for characterising O
2-dependent enzymes such as Mὄssbauer and EPR spectroscopy [
26], such techniques were rudimentary and non-specific, leaving outcomes open to alternative possible explanations.
Gunsalus initially established [
28,
29,
30,
31,
32] that the lactonizing activity was dependent on the combined activities of two enzymes (E
1 and E
2) which on purification were both confirmed to bind FMN. E
1 was monomeric, (estimated MW 50,000 kDa), bound NADH but not NADPH, had an absorption spectrum that did not exhibit a characteristic heme-generated Soret band in response to CO, was not inhibited by divalent metal ion chelating agents (bipyridyl = Fe
2+; NaN
3 = Cu
2+), and was able to donate electrons to decolourize methylene blue. Conversely, E
2 was also reported to be monomeric (estimated MW 80,000 kDa), did not exhibit a Soret band or the ability to reduce methylene blue, but was strongly inhibited by bipyridyl but not NaN
3. Gunsalus interpreted this initial data to conclude that both E
1 and E
2 were flavoproteins, both physically and functionally linked as a multienzyme complex in which the flavin nucleotide served as a molecular bridge or conduit to channel reducing power between the two activities. Functionally, E
1 served as an NADH oxidase able to reduce FMN to FMNH
2 independent of any involvement of either Cu
2+, Fe
2+, or heme iron. Conversely, its partner enzyme E
2 was a monooxygenase independent of Cu2+ and heme iron, but dependent of Fe
2+ (nonheme-iron) to promote the FMNH
2 + O
2-dependent lactonization of DKC. These outcomes were summarised as a simple cartoon (
Figure 3A). Subsequently, as a result of a number of additional publications [
33,
34,
35,
36,
37] the roles of E
1 and E
2 were further refined, including more detail of the predicted key valency changes undergone by the nonheme-iron content of E
2 (
Figure 3B). While the last of that sequence of publications in September 1966 still maintained a pivotal role for the interchange of Fe
2+/Fe
3+ in the functioning of E
2, that all changed in late 1969 when Gunsalus published a short paper most significant for reporting that the monooxygenase E
2 was bipyridyl-insensitive, and consequently concluded to be metal-free [
38]. It may be no coincidence that the late 1960s corresponds with the commencement of Gunsalus’ use of highly sensitive methodologies such as Mossbauer spectroscopy as sophisticated tools to investigate the involvement of iron in the bioactivation of O
2 for cytochrome P450 monooxygenase [
39], the key multicomponent biooxygenating enzyme that initiates the camphor biodegradation pathway of
P. putida ATCC 17453 (
Figure 2). No explanation was offered for the implied iron-free activation of molecular oxygen by E
2, a significant digression from his previous 1961-66 mantra, and notably no further reported research on 2,5-DKCMO was undertaken by Gunsalus.