Spin-Forbidden Ligand Binding to the Ferrous−Heme Group: Ab Initio and DFT Studies

Ligand dynamics in heme proteins observed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy at cryogenic temperatures

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy is a powerful tool for the investigation of protein-ligand interactions in heme proteins. From the variety of ligands that bind to the heme iron, nitric oxide and carbon monoxide are particularly attractive, as their bond-stretching vibrations give rise to strong mid-infrared absorption bands that can be measured with exquisite sensitivity and precision using photolysis difference spectroscopy at cryogenic temperatures. These stretching bands are fine-tuned by electrostatic interactions with the environment and, therefore, the ligands can be utilized as local probes of structure and dynamics. Bound to the heme iron, the ligand-stretching bands are susceptible to changes in the iron-ligand bond and the electric field at the active site. Upon photolysis, the vibrational bands reveal changes due to ligand relocation to docking sites within the protein, rotational motions of the ligand in these sites, and protein conformational changes. Photolysis difference spectra taken over a wide temperature range (3-300 K) using specific temperature protocols for sample photodissociation thus can provide detailed insights into both protein and ligand dynamics. Moreover, temperature-derivative spectroscopy has proven to be a particularly powerful technique to study protein-ligand interactions. This technique has been extensively applied to studies of carbon monoxide binding to heme proteins, whereas measurements with nitric oxide are still scarce. This chapter describes infrared cryospectroscopy techniques and presents examples that demonstrate their applicability to nitric oxide binding to heme proteins.

Protein Environment Facilitates O2 Binding in Non-Heme Iron Enzyme. An Insight from ONIOM Calculations on Isopenicillin N Synthase (IPNS)

Binding of dioxygen to a non-heme enzyme has been modeled using the ONIOM combined quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) method. For the present system, isopenicillin N synthase (IPNS), binding of dioxygen is stabilized by 8-10 kcal/mol for a QM:MM (B3LYP:Amber) protein model compared to a quantum mechanical model of the active site only. In the protein system, the free energy change of O2 binding is close to zero. Two major factors consistently stabilize O2 binding. The first effect, evaluated at the QM level, originates from a change in coordination geometry of the iron center. The active-site model artificially favors the deoxy state (O2 not bound) because it allows too-large rearrangements of the five-coordinate iron site. This error is corrected when the protein is included. The corresponding effect on binding energies is 3-6 kcal/mol, depending on the coordination mode of O2 (side-on or end-on). The second major factor that stabilizes O2 binding is van der Waals interactions between dioxygen and the surrounding enzyme. These interactions, 3-4 kcal/mol at the MM level, are neglected in models that include only the active site. Polarization of the active site by surrounding amino acids does not have a significant effect on the binding energy in the present system.