Heme groups, cytochrome

The most conspicuous use of iron in biological systems is in our blood, where the erythrocytes are filled with the oxygen-binding protein hemoglobin. The red color of blood is due to the iron atom bound to the heme group in hemoglobin. Similar heme-bound iron atoms are present in a number of proteins involved in electron-transfer reactions, notably cytochromes. A chemically more sophisticated use of iron is found in an enzyme, ribo nucleotide reductase, that catalyzes the conversion of ribonucleotides to deoxyribonucleotides, an important step in the synthesis of the building blocks of DNA. 

Figure 12.14 The three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction center of a purple bacterium was the first high-resolution structure to be obtained from a membrane-bound protein. The molecule contains four subunits L, M, H, and a cytochrome. Subunits L and M bind the photosynthetic pigments, and the cytochrome binds four heme groups. The L (yellow) and the M (red) subunits each have five transmembrane a helices A-E. The H subunit (green) has one such transmembrane helix, AH, and the cytochrome (blue) has none. Approximate membrane boundaries are shown. The photosynthetic pigments and the heme groups appear in black. (Adapted from L. Stryer, Biochemistry, 3rd ed. New York ...

Cytochromes were first named and classified on the basis of their absorption spectra (Figure 21.9), which depend upon the structure and environment of their heme groups. The b cytochromes contain iron—protoporphyrin IX (Figure 21.10), the same heme found in hemoglobin and myoglobin. The c cytochromes contain heme c, derived from iron-protoporphyrin IX by the covalent attachment of cysteine residues from the associated protein. UQ-cyt c... 

Figure 7. Mechanism of the proton-translocating ubiquinol cytochrome c reductase (complex III) Q cycle. There is a potential difference of up to 150 mV across the hydrophobic core of this complex (potential barrier represented by the vertical broken line). Cytochromes hour and b N are heme groups on the same peptide subunits of complex III which can transfer electrons across the hydrophobic core. The movement of two electrons provides the driving force to transfer two protons from the matrix to the cytosol. Diffusion of UQ and UQHj, which are uncharged, in the hydrophobic core, and lipid bilayer of the inner membrane is not influenced by the membrane potential (see Nicholls and Ferguson, 1992).

Complex IV consists of 13 peptides, two heme A groups (cytochrome a and a3> and two or three Cu atoms (Table 2). It spans the inner membrane and protrudes into the intermembrane space. Complex IV catalyzes the reduction of dioxygen by oxidized cytochrome c, and four protons derived from the matrix are consumed in the reaction. 

Fig. 8. (a) Structure of the full-length Rieske protein from bovine heart mitochondrial bci complex. The catalytic domain is connected to the transmembrane helix by a flexible linker, (b) Superposition of the three positional states of the catalytic domain of the Rieske protein observed in different crystal forms. The ci state is shown in white, the intermediate state in gray, and the b state in black. Cytochrome b consists of eight transmembrane helices and contains two heme centers, heme and Sh-Cytochrome c i has a water-soluble catalytic domain containing heme c i and is anchored by a C-terminal transmembrane helix. The heme groups are shown as wireframes, the iron atoms as well as the Rieske cluster in the three states as space-filling representations. 

Postgate (51) observed a high concentration of a type of cytochrome, designated cytochrome cz, in the strictly anaerobic sulfate-reducing bacterium, Desul/ovibrio. The cytochrome Cz Desulfovibrio vulgaris has been shown to possess a very low redox potential (—0.205 V), two heme groups per mole and a sequence which implies two half sections, each of which binds a heme group (52). 

Fig. 1. Space filling model of yeast iso-1-cytochrome c. The edge of the heme prosthetic group is visible as a black linear structure in the center of the protein. Phe-82 is shaded a dark gray at the left upper side of the heme group...

Fig. 1. (a) The heme group in a c-type cytochrome showing the covalent attachment, (b) The di heme group. 

In a stopped-flow study on cytochrome cdi from P. aeruginosa, the ferrous d heme-NO species was formed despite electron transfer from the c to the d heme being relatively slow, rate constant approximately 1 s , for the relatively short distance between the two hemes (32). Such a distance would normally predict much faster electron transfer. The relatively slow interheme electron transfer rate has been observed on a number of occasions, and before the structure of the protein was known was thought to reflect the relatively large interheme separation distance and/or relative orientation of the two hemes (30). The crystal structures provide no evidence for either of these proposals there is nothing unusual about the relative orientation of the c and di heme groups. 

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