Superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2) is one of the rare mitochondrial enzymes evolved to use
manganese as a cofactor over the more abundant element iron. Although mitochondrial iron
does not normally bind SOD2, iron will misincorporate into Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Sod2p when cells are starved for manganese or when mitochondrial iron homeostasis is
disrupted by mutations in yeast grx5, ssq1, and mtm1. We report here that such changes in
mitochondrial manganese and iron similarly affect cofactor selection in a heterologously …