Parallel X-ray absorption edge and EPR studies of the particulate methane monooxygenase in situ reveal that the enzyme contains unusually high levels of copper ions with a significant portion of the copper ions existing as Cu(I) in the "as-isolated" form (70-80%). The observation of high levels of reduced copper in a monooxygenase is surprising considering that the natural cosubstrate of the enzyme is dioxygen. Toward clarifying the roles of the various copper ions in the enzyme, we have successfully prepared different states of the protein in the membrane-bound form at various levels of reduction using dithionite, dioxygen, and ferricyanide. EPR intensity analysis of the fully-oxidized preparations indicates that the bulk of copper ions are arranged in cluster units. The fully-reduced protein obtained by reduction by dithionite has been used to initiate the single turnover of the enzyme in the presence of dioxygen. Differential reactivity toward dioxygen was observed upon analyzing the copper reduction levels in these synchronized preparations. The enzyme is capable of supporting turnover in the absence of external electron donors in the highly reduced states. These results suggest the presence of at least two classes of copper ions in the particulate methane monooxygenase. As a working hypothesis, we have referred to these classes of copper ions as (1) the catalytic (C) clusters, which function principally as the catalytic core of the enzyme, and (2) the electron-transfer (E) clusters, which are presumed to be the source of endogenous reducing equivalents and therefore function in an electron-transfer capacity.