Hemoglobin conformation

Nagel RL, Gibson QH. The hemoglobin-haptoglobin reaction as a probe of hemoglobin conformation. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 1972 48 959-966. 

Ogawa S, McConnel HM (1967) Spin-label study of hemoglobin conformations in solution. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 58 19-26... 

Nevertheless, the technique suffers from a severe time scale problem -the trajectories are computed for (at most) a few nanoseconds. This is far too short compared to times required for many processes in biophysics. For example, the ii to T conformational transition in hemoglobin lasts tens of microseconds [1], and the typical time for ion migration through the gramicidin channel is hundreds of nanoseconds. This limits (of course) our ability to make a meaningful comparison to experiments, using MD. 

Reactivity. Hemoglobin can exist ia either of two stmctural coaformatioas, corresponding to the oxy (R, relaxed) or deoxy (T, tense) states. The key differences between these two stmctures are that the constrained T state has a much lower oxygen affinity than the R state and the T state has a lower tendency to dissociate into subunits that can be filtered in the kidneys. Therefore, stabilization of the T conformation would be expected to solve both the oxygen affinity and renal excretion problems. 

As noted, hemoglobin is an tetramer. Each of the four subunits has a conformation virtually identical to that of myoglobin. Two different types of subunits, a and /3, are necessary to achieve cooperative Oa-binding by Hb. The /3-chain at 146 amino acid residues is shorter than the myoglobin chain (153 residues), mainly because its final helical segment (the H helix) is shorter. The a-chain (141 residues) also has a shortened H helix and lacks the D helix as well (Figure 15.28). Max Perutz, who has devoted his life to elucidating the atomic structure of Hb, noted very early in his studies that the molecule was... 

Movement of the Heme Iron hy Less Than 0.04 nm Induces the Conformational Change in Hemoglobin... 

FIGURE 15.32 Changes in the position of the heme iron atom upon oxygenation lead to conformational changes in the hemoglobin molecnle. 

The Oxy and Deoxy Forms of Hemoglobin Represent Two Different Conformational States... 

A model for the allosteric behavior of hemoglobin is based on recent observations that oxygen is accessible only to the heme groups of the a-chains when hemoglobin is in the T conformational state. Perutz has pointed out that the heme environment of /3-chains in the T state is virtually inaccessible because of steric hindrance by amino acid residues in the E helix. This hindrance dis-... 

Thermodynamically it would be expected that a ligand may not have identical affinity for both receptor conformations. This was an assumption in early formulations of conformational selection. For example, differential affinity for protein conformations was proposed for oxygen binding to hemoglobin [17] and for choline derivatives and nicotinic receptors [18]. Furthermore, assume that these conformations exist in an equilibrium defined by an allosteric constant L (defined as [Ra]/[R-i]) and that a ligand [A] has affinity for both conformations defined by equilibrium association constants Ka and aKa, respectively, for the inactive and active states ... 

Oxygenation of Hemoglobin Triggers Conformational Changes in the Apoprotein... 

Oxygenation of Hemoglobin Is Accompanied by Large Conformational Changes... 

Simon, S.R., and Konigsberg, W.H. (1966) Chemical modification of hemoglobins A study of conformation restraint by internal bridging. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 56, 749. 

Several enzymes have been immobilized in sol-gel matrices effectively and employed in diverse applications. Urease, catalase, and adenylic acid deaminase were first encapsulated in sol-gel matrices [72], The encapsulated urease and catalase retained partial activity but adenylic acid deaminase completely lost its activity. After three decades considerable attention has been paid again towards the bioencapsulation using sol-gel glasses. Braun et al. [73] successfully encapsulated alkaline phosphatase in silica gel, which retained its activity up to 2 months (30% of initial) with improved thermal stability. Further Shtelzer et al. [58] sequestered trypsin within a binary sol-gel-derived composite using TEOS and PEG. Ellerby et al. [74] entrapped other proteins such as cytochrome c and Mb in TEOS sol-gel. Later several proteins such as Mb [8], hemoglobin (Hb) [56], cyt c [55, 75], bacteriorhodopsin (bR) [76], lactate oxidase [77], alkaline phosphatase (AP) [78], GOD [51], HRP [79], urease [80], superoxide dismutase [8], tyrosinase [81], acetylcholinesterase [82], etc. have been immobilized into different sol-gel matrices. Hitherto some reports have described the various aspects of sol-gel entrapped biomolecules such as conformation [50, 60], dynamics [12, 83], accessibility [46], reaction kinetics [50, 54], activity [7, 84], and stability [1, 80],... 

Hemoglobin is directly measured and is an independent and continuous variable However, and probably because at any one time a number of forms and conformations (oxyhemoglobin, deoxyhemoglobin, methemoglobin, etc.) of hemoglobin are actually present the distribution seen is not typically a normal one, but rather may be a multimodal one. Here a nonparametric technique such as the Wilcoxon or multiple rank-sum is called for. 

Subunit contacts need to be relatively extensive and stable if they are to ensure subunit association in the absence of a covalent link. However, in some cases a subunit contact can shift back and forth between two different stable positions, as has been demonstrated for oxy- versus deoxyhemoglobin (Perutz, 1970). Allosteric control can then be exerted by any factors which either affect the local conformation or bind between the subunits. A less elegant but even more extreme example is lamprey hemoglobin, which dissociates altogether in the oxy form (Hendrickson and Love, 1971). 

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