Protein-lipid respiratory chain complexes

Functionally and strucmrally, the components of the respiratory chain are present in the inner mitochondrial membrane as four protein-lipid respiratory chain complexes that span the membrane. Cytochrome c is the only soluble cytochrome and, together with Q, seems to be a more mobile component of the respiratory chain connecting the fixed complexes (Figures 12-7 and 12-8). 

Defects of nuclear DNA also cause mitochondrial diseases. As mentioned above, the vast majority of mitochondrial proteins are encoded by nDNA, synthesized in the cytoplasm and imported into the mitochondria through a complex series of steps. Diseases can be due to mutations in genes encoding respiratory chain subunits, ancillary proteins controlling the proper assembly of the respiratory chain complexes, proteins controlling the importation machinery, or proteins controlling the lipid composition of the inner membrane. All these disorders will be transmitted by mendelian inheritance. From a biochemical point of view, all areas of mitochondrial metabolism can be affected (see below). 

Cytochromes, as components of electron transfer chains, must interact with the other components, accepting electrons from reduced donor molecules and transferring them to appropriate acceptors. In the respiratory chain of the mitochondria, the ubiquinolxytochrome c oxidoreductase, QCR or cytochrome bc complex, transfers electrons coming from Complexes 1 and 11 to cytochrome c. The bc complex oxidises a membrane-localised ubiquinol the redox process is coupled to the translocation of protons across the membrane, in the so-called proton-motive Q cycle, which is presented in a simplified form in Figure 13.14. This cycle was first proposed by Peter Mitchell 30 years ago and substantially confirmed experimentally since then. The Q cycle in fact consists of two turnovers of QH2 (Figure 13.14). In both turnovers, the lipid-soluble ubiquinol (QH2) is oxidized in a two-step reoxidation in which the semiquinone CoQ is a stable intermediate, at the intermembrane face of the mitochondrial inner membrane. It transfers one electron to the Rieske iron—sulfur protein (ISP), one electron to one of the two cytochrome b haems (bi), while two protons are transferred to the intermembrane space. In both of the Q cycles, the cytochrome bi reduces cytochrome bfj while the Reiske iron—sulfur cluster reduces cytochrome c/. The cytochrome ci in turn reduces the water-soluble cytochrome c, which transfers its electrons to the terminal oxidase, cytochrome c oxidase, described above. In one of the two Q cycles, reduced cytochrome bf reduces Q to the semiquinone, which is then reduced to QH2 by the second reduced cytochrome bn- The protons required for this step are derived from the matrix side of the membrane. The overall outcome of the two CoQ cycles (10) (/ — matrix o — intermembrane space) is... 

Redox processes play an essential role in biological energy conversions. In photosynthesis and in the respiratory chain, for example, electrrMi transfer chains within and between protein complexes couple to proton or ion gradients across the lipid membrane which in turn are used to form chemical energy in the form of adenosinetriphosphate, ATP. Some of these protein complexes simple act as electron shuttles, i.e., they commute between membrane-spanning complexes transferring an electron. Others span the membrane and contain multiple redox centers with complex electron transfer mechanisms and catalytic functions. 

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