Heme-copper complexes

Complexes III and IV have Fe-porphyrin prosthetic groups (hemes), complex IV also contains copper atoms which are involved in electron transport. Complexes I, III, and IV use the energy of electron transport to pump protons out of the matrix so as to maintain a pH gradient and an electrical potential difference across the inner membrane required for ATP synthesis (see below and Appendix 3). It is important to remember that all dehydrogenations of metabolic substrates remove two protons as well as two electrons and that a corresponding number of protons are consumed in the final reduction of dioxygen (Figures 5, 6). 

The reddish metal was already known in prehistoric times. It occasionally occurs as a native metal, but mostly in conspicuous green ores, from which it is extracted relatively easily. It is convenient to work, but not very hard. Not very optimal as a tool ("Otzi the Iceman" had a copper axe with him). Only through the addition of tin is the more useful bronze obtained. Its zinc alloy is the versatile and widely used brass. Copper is one of the coinage metals. Water pipes are commonly made of copper. Its very good thermal and electrical conductivity is commonly exploited (cable ), as well as its durability (roofs, gutters), as the verdigris (basic copper carbonate) protects the metal. Cu phthalocyanines are the most beautiful blue pigments. Seems to be essential to all life as a trace element. In some molluscs, Cu replaces Fe in the heme complex. A 70-kg human contains 72 mg. 

The normal range of serum copper in the adult is 11 to 24 Urinary copper is normally about 20 jjg/day. This level is equivalent to 0.5 to 3.0% of copper intake. Most of the copper absorbed into the body is excreted by way of the bile and lost via the feces. About 1.7 mg of copper is excreted in bile per day this amount varies with the amount absorbed from the diet. This copper occurs complexed with protein and bilirubin. Bilirubin is a catabolite of heme. The copper is excreted in the bile and lends not to be absorbed back Into the body, There is little or no enterohepatic circulation of copper. The concentration of bile copper drops markedly with a copper deficiency, contributing to the conservation of this mineral by the body. 

It has also been of interest that a copper-heme A complex— which Smythe and Bayne obtained from bovine heart by shortening our isolation procedure (24)—exhibits similarities in NMR and visible spectra to those for pure FeOFe compounds. Other experiments suggest copper ions may either promote formation of FeOFe linkages or form CuOFe... 

Figure 4 Reaction of copper(I) complex and reduced heme gives [(FgTPPlFe k o )-CU (TMPA)] (1), in...

Electron Transfer in Complex IV Involves Two Hemes and Two Copper Sites... 

To provide a model for nitrite reductases72 Karlin and co-workers characterized a nitrite-bound complex (226) (r = 0.05)214 In an endeavor to model nitrite reductase activity, Tanaka and co-workers prepared a few mononuclear complexes (227) (r = 0.74)215 (228) (r = 0.82),216 (229) (r = 0.97),217 (230) (r = 0.16),217 (231) (r = 0.07),217 and (232) (r = 0.43 and r = 0.53)217 and studied the electrochemical reduction of N02A As a part of their activity on modeling heme-copper terminal oxidases, Holm and co-workers prepared complex (233) (r = 0.96).218 Using a sterically hindered tris(pyridylmethyl)amine, Canary et al. prepared a complex (234) (r=1.00), studied its redox behavior, and discussed various factors that may contribute to the difference (higher potential for the new complex) in the redox potential of a Cu Cu1 couple between substituted and unsubstituted ligands.2 9... 

Fig. 8. Model for the high affinity complex between horse Cc and CcO determined by Roberts and Pique (34). The backbone of horse Cc and CcO subunit II are shown with the side chains of selected lysines and acidic residues colored blue and red, respectively. The residue numbers on subunit II are for R. sphaeroides CcO. Van der Waals surfaces are shown for Cc heme and subunit II Trp143 and Met263. The CuA coppers are represented by green Corey-Pauling-Koltun models. Reprinted with permission from Ref. (18). Copyright 1999, American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

For the cytochrome c-plastocyanin complex, the kinetic effects of cross-linking are much more drastic while the rate of the intracomplex transfer is equal to 1000 s in the noncovalent complex where the iron-to-copper distance is expected to be about 18 A, it is estimated to be lower than 0.2 s in the corresponding covalent complex [155]. This result is all the more remarkable in that the spectroscopic and thermodynamic properties of the two redox centers appear weakly affected by the cross-linking process, and suggests that an essential segment of the electron transfer path has been lost in the covalent complex. Another system in which such conformational effects could be studied is the physiological complex between tetraheme cytochrome and ferredoxin I from Desulfovibrio desulfuricans Norway the spectral and redox properties of the hemes and of the iron-sulfur cluster are found essentially identical in the covalent and noncovalent complexes and an intracomplex transfer, whose rate has not yet been measured, takes place in the covalent species [156]. 

Chemical Reviews paper. We can only discuss a small number of these here, but some important categories are (1) synthetic Fe(II)-Cu(I) complexes and their reactions with O2, (2) oxidized heme-copper models (Fe(III)-X-Cu(II) complexes, where X equals 0x0- and hydroxo-bridged complexes, cyanide-bridged complexes, or other X-bridged complexes), (3) crosslinked histidine-tyrosine residues at the heme-copper center, and (4) Cua site synthetic models. 

The product was identihed by a number of spectroscopic methods. Dioxygen uptake was measured by spectrophotometric titration. MALDI-TOF-MS (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry), an MS method particularly suited to determining molecular masses of biopolymers and synthetic materials with relative masses up to several hundred kilodaltons, determined that the product contained stoichiometric amounts of the heme starting material, the copper complex, and dioxygen in a 1 1 1 ratio. 

The enzymes of this type that have been characterized contain some type of redox-active cofactor, such as a flavin (3), or a metal ion (heme iron, non-heme iron, or copper), or both (4-6). Our understanding of the mechanism of these enzymes is most advanced in the case of the heme-containing enzyme cytochrome P450. But in spite of the availability of a crystal structure of an enzyme-substrate complex (7) and extensive information about related reactions of low molecular weight synthetic analogues of cytochrome P450 (8), a detailed picture of the molecular events that are referred to as "dioxygen activation" continues to elude us. 

Other aspects of solvation have included the use of surfactants (SDS, CTAB, Triton X-100), sometimes in pyridine-containing solution, to solubilize and de-aggregate hemes, i.e., to dissolve them in water (see porphyrin complexes, Section 5.4.3.7.2). An example is provided by the solubilization of an iron-copper diporphyrin to permit a study of its reactions with dioxygen and with carbon monoxide in an aqueous environment. Iron complexes have provided the lipophilic and hydrophilic components in the bifunctional phase transfer catalysts [Fe(diimine)2Cl2]Cl and [EtsBzNJpeCU], respectively. 

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