Histidine residues cytochrome

Cytochromes are electron-transfer proteins having one or several haem groups. Cytochrome c binds to the protein by one or, more commonly two, thioether bonds involving sulphydryl groups of cysteine residues. The fifth haem iron ligand is always provided by a histidine residue. Cytochrome c has been proved to be a useful model system for studying the relationship between protein structure and thermostability due to the availability of its three-dimensional structure from a wide variety of organisms, both mesophiles and thermophiles. 

Electrons from cytochrome c are transferred to Cu sites and then passed to the heme iron of cytochrome a. Cu is liganded by two cysteines and two histidines (Figure 21.18). The heme of cytochrome a is liganded by imidazole rings of histidine residues (Figure 21.18). The Cu and the Fe of cytochrome a are within 1.5 nm of each other. 

We may illustrate this approach to the determination of the nuclear factor by the elegant studies performed by Gray and co-workers, who have determined the thermodynamic properties and the rate temperature dependence for the electron transfer between Ru(NH3) covalently bound to the histidine residues of some proteins, and the redox eenter of these proteins [110, 111, 112, 113]. The experimental results obtained for cytochrome c [110] and azurin [111, 112] are very similar. Using the thermodynamic data and the value or the upper limit of Ea reported in these studies, we deduce from Eq. (23) ... 

This discussion will consider cytochrome c first in some detail, and then survey current developments with respect to other c-type cytochromes (Table 16). In nearly all cases these cytochromes involve methionine and histidine residues as axial ligands. 

The H NMR spectra of ferricytochromes d are typical of high spin iron(III). The iron atom is pentacoordinated, with four ligands provided by the nitrogen atoms of a porphyrin (see Fig. 5.7) and the fifth ligand being a histidine residue exposed to the solvent. Being a cytochrome of c type, the heme moiety is covalently bound to two cysteinyl residues by means of thioether links (Fig. 5.11). 

This type of active site is also known as a mixed-valence copper site. Similarly to the type 3 site, it contains a dinuclear copper core, but both copper ions have a formal oxidation state of +1.5 in the oxidized form. This site exhibits a characteristic seven-line pattern in the EPR spectra and is purple colored. Both copper ions have a tetrahedral geometry and are bridged by two sulfur atoms of two cysteinyl residues. Each copper ion is also coordinated by a nitrogen atom from a histidine residue. The function of this site is long-range electron transfer, and it can be found, for example, in cytochrome c oxidase [12-14], and nitrous oxide reductase (Figure 5.1 e). 

A more sophisticated method involves the combination of metal-substituted proteins with electron acceptors covalently attached to the amino acid residue located at the protein surface. The [Ru(NH3)5]3+ complex attached to the histidine residue had been used in Zn-substituted myoglobin [71,72] or cytochrome b562 [73] as an electron acceptor. This design allows the distance between donor and acceptor to be fixed and is very useful for experimental analysis of intramolecular electron transfer in proteins. 

Figure 12 The heme group in cytochrome c showing the axial ligation to methionine and histidine residues of the protein...

Several enzymes with peroxidase-like action have also been used in immunoassays. Microperoxidases are catalytically active fragments obtained from cytochrome c by proteolytic action. They consist of the heme group covalently coupled to a short peptide alpha helix (26). The active site structure is similar to that of peroxidase Four of the six possible coordination bonds of the iron atom are occupied by bonding to the porphyrin while the fifth complexes with a histidine residue and the sixth is exposed to the environment and forms the catalytically active portion of the molecule. The reaction mechanism and spectrum of substrates is similar to HRP, although the specific activity is variable... 

This is a remarkable reaction because the transition metal chemistry of N2O is sparse, especially with copper. Most N2O reductases are soluble, periplasmic homodimers however, there are examples of membrane-associated enzymes. " The best characterized N2O reductases are from Paracoccus denitrificans, Pseudomonas nautica, and Pseudomonas stutzeri, and most of the information presented here is derived from experiments on these enzymes. Where comparable data are available, N2O reductases from various organisms appear to be fairly similar, with the exception of the enzyme from Wolinella succinogenes, as noted above. The crystal stractmes of N2O reductase from P. nautica and more recently from P. denitrificans show two distinct copper clusters per subunit a bis-thiolate bridged dinuclear electron-transfer site (Cua), which is analogous to the Cua site in cytochrome c oxidase see Cyanide Complexes of the Transition Metals), and a novel four-copper cluster ligated by seven histidines, the catalytic copper site (Cuz), where N2O is thought to bind and be reduced. Cuz was proposed to be a copper-histidine cluster on the basis of the presence of nine strictly conserved histidine residues, and this was supported by a H NMR study that identified two non-CuA associated resonances that were assigned as copper-histidine N-H protons. ... 

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