Histidine azurin, plastocyanin ligand

The type-1 blue copper proteins act as electron carriers azurin, plastocyanin, stellacyanin, umecyanin e.g. They are characterized by a rather strong LMCT (ligand to metal charge transfer) band near 600 nm and by small hyperline coupling constants A in EPR. Copper is bound to two imidazole groups of histidine and to two... 

Similarities with respect to the location of cysteine, histidine and methionine residues in the proteins of azurin, plastocyanin and ceruloplasmin indicate that the type 1 centres in ceruloplasmin are similar to those in the other two proteins. The nine-line superhyperfine splitting in the ESR spectrum of the type 2 Cu has been interpreted in terms of four equivalent nitrogen ligands.978 This was observed in a protein from which the type 1 copper was depleted by dialysis against ascorbate. 

In the blue, Type I copper proteins plastocyanin and azurin, the active-site structure comprises the trigonal array [CuN2S] of two histidine ligands and one cysteine ligand about the copper,... 

In contrast to azurin, the plant plastocyanins have a conserved negative patch of residues adjacent to a putative redox partner-binding site. Plastocyanin has, in addition, the hydrophobic face into which the edge of the second histidine ligand is inserted. 

Quenching of excited-state [Ru(bipy)3] by reduced blue proteins involves electron transfer from the Cu with rate constants close to the diffusion limit for electron-transfer reactions in aqueous solution. It is suggested that the excited Ru complex binds close to the copper-histidine centre, and that outer-sphere electron transfer occurs from Cu through the imidazole groups to Ru. Estimated electron-transfer distances are about 3.3 A for plastocyanin and 3.8 A for azurin, suggesting that the hydrophobic bipy ligands of Ru " penetrate the residues that isolate the Cu-His unit from the solvent. ... 

In all three proteins, the type 1 copper is coordinated in a distorted tetrahedron in which the Cu2+ ion is situated 0.35 (Pcy), 0.43 (Paz), and 0.40 A (Acy) above the plane formed by both histidines and cysteine, towards the methionine residue [20]. In azurin, the distance between the methionine ligand and copper ion is markedly larger than for the members of the plastocyanin family, resulting in a more trigonal pyramidal conformation [20,21], a ligand stereochemistry which also occurs in halocyanin [18,94], Other factors influence the redox potentials as well, e.g., the hydrophobicity of the region surrounding the copper center. However, so little is known about the collaboration between the various factors that it is currently not possible to predict accurately the probable redox potentials of type 1 copper proteins. 

The central copper ion of the auracyanins is probably coordinated by two histidines, one cysteine, and a methionine residue. The auracyanins are unique among the small blue proteins in that they possess a methionine and a glutamine residue (see phytocyanins) which both could act as the fourth ligand coordinating the central copper ion. This copper center is surrounded by a hydro-phobic environment similar to that of the other small blue proteins [68]. Amino acid sequence comparisons place auracyanin in a phylogenetic tree at approximately equal distances from azurin and plastocyanin [68,92]. 

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