Recent spectroscopic, kinetics, and structural studies on cytochrome
c oxidases (C
cOs) suggest that the histidine-tyrosine cross-link at the heme
a3-Cu
B binuclear active site plays a key role in the reductive O
2-cleavage process.In this report, we describe dioxygen reactivity of copper and heme/Cu assemblies in which the imidazole-phenolmoieties are employed as a part of copper ligand L
N4OH (2-{4-[2-(bis-pyridin-2-ylmethyl-amino)-ethyl]-imidazol-1-yl}-4,6-di -
tert-butyl-phenol). Stopped-flow kinetic studies reveal that low-temperature oxygenation of [Cu
I(L
N4OH)]
+(
1) leads to rapid formation of a copper-superoxo species [Cu
II(L
N4OH)(O
2-)]
+ (
1a), which further reacts with
1 toform the 2:1 Cu:O
2 adduct, peroxo complex [{Cu
II(L
N4OH)}
2(O
22-)]
2+ (
1b). Complex
1b is also short-lived, and adimer Cu(II)-phenolate complex [Cu
II(L
N4O
-)]
22+ (
1c) eventually forms as a final product in the later stage of theoxygenation reaction. Dioxygen reactivities of
1 and its anisole analogue [Cu
I(L
N4OMe)]
+ (
2) in the presence of aheme complex (F
8)Fe
II (
3) (F
8 = tetrakis(2,6,-difluorotetraphenyl)-porphyrinate) are also described. Spectroscopicinvestigations including UV-vis,
1H and
2H NMR, EPR, and resonance Raman spectroscopies along withspectrophotometric titration reveal that low-temperature oxygenation of
1/
3 leads to formation of a heme-peroxo-copper species [(F
8)Fe
III-(O
22-)-Cu
II(L
N4OH)]
+ (
4),
(O-O) = 813 cm
-1. Complex
4 is an S = 2 spin system withstrong antiferromagnetic coupling between high-spin iron(III) and copper(II) through a bridging peroxide ligand. Avery similar complex [(F
8)Fe
III-(O
22-)-Cu
II(L
N4OMe)]
+ (
5) (
(O-O) = 815 cm
-1) can be generated by utilizing theanisole compound
2, which indicates that the cross-linked phenol moiety in
4 does not interact with the bridgingperoxo group between heme and copper. This investigation thus reveals that a stable heme-peroxo-copper speciescan be generated even in the presence of an imidazole-phenol group (i.e., possible electron/proton donor source)in close proximity. Future studies are needed to probe key factors that can trigger the reductive O-O cleavage inC
cO model compounds.