The Effects of Ligand Exchange and Mobility on the Peroxidase Activity of a Bacterial Cytochrome c upon Unfolding

H135A controls the redox activity of the Sco copper center. Kinetic and spectroscopic studies of the His135Ala variant of Bacillus subtilis Sco

Sco-like proteins contain copper bound by two cysteines and a histidine residue. Although their function is still incompletely understood, there is a clear involvement with the assembly of cytochrome oxidases that contain the Cu(A) center in subunit 2, possibly mediating the transfer of copper into the Cu(A) binuclear site. We are investigating the reaction chemistry of BSco, the homologue from Bacillus subtilis. Our studies have revealed that BSco behaves more like a redox protein than a metallochaperone. The essential H135 residue that coordinates copper plays a role in stabilizing the Cu(II) rather than the Cu(I) form. When H135 is mutated to alanine, the oxidation rate of both hydrogen peroxide and one-electron outer-sphere reductants increases by 3 orders of magnitude, suggestive of a redox switch mechanism between the His-on and His-off conformational states of the protein. Imidazole binds to the H135A protein, restoring the N superhyperfine coupling in the EPR, but is unable to rescue the redox properties of wild-type Sco. These findings reveal a unique role for H135 in Sco function. We propose a hypothesis that electron transfer from Sco to the maturing oxidase may be essential for proper maturation and/or protection from oxidative damage during the assembly process. The findings also suggest that interaction of Sco with its protein partner(s) may perturb the Cu(II)-H135 interaction and thus induce a sensitive redox activity to the protein.

The effect of replacing the axial methionine ligand with a lysine residue in cytochrome c-550 from Paracoccus versutus assessed by X-ray crystallography and unfolding

The structure of cytochrome c-550 from the nonphotosynthetic bacteria Paraccocus versutus has been solved by X-ray crystallography to 1.90 A resolution, and reveals a high structural homology to other bacterial cytochromes c(2). The effect of replacing the axial heme-iron methionine ligand with a lysine residue on protein structure and unfolding has been assessed using the M100K variant. From X-ray structures at 1.95 and 1.55 A resolution it became clear that the amino group of the lysine side chain coordinates to the heme-iron. Structural differences compared to the wild-type protein are confined to the lysine ligand loop connecting helices four and five. In the heme cavity an additional water molecule is found which participates in an H-bonding interaction with the lysine ligand. Under cryo-conditions extra electron density in the lysine ligand loop is revealed, leading to residues K97 to T101 being modeled with a double main-chain conformation. Upon unfolding, dissociation of the lysine ligand from the heme-iron is shown to be pH dependent, with NMR data consistent with the occurrence of a ligand exchange mechanism similar to that seen for the wild-type protein.