Thiolate ligands, cysteine residues

Thiolates (RS ) represent an extensive family of ligands, and include chelating forms. Thiolates are known to act as monodentate donors, but often act in a bridging role. There is a clear biological interest, through participation of thiolates (cysteine residues) as donors in many metalloproteins both as terminal S donors and bridging ligands in, for example, Fe S clusters. 

The other simple peptide complex e.g. [Fe(Z-Cys-Ala-OMe)4]2- did not exhibit such a reversible redox couple under similar conditions. The Fe(lll) complexes of simple peptide thiolates or cysteine alkyl esters are found to be thermally quite unstable and decompose by oxidaticxi at the thiolate ligand by intramolecular electron transfer. Thus the macro-ring chelation of the Cys-Pro-Leu-Cys ligand appears to stabilize the Fe(in) state. The stability of the Fe(ni) form as indicated by the cyclic voltamnoogram measurements and by the visible spectra of the Fe(in) peptide complexes suggests that the peptide prevents thermal and hydrolytic decomposition of the Fe-S bond because of the hydrophobicity and steric bulk of the Pro and Leu residues (3,4). 

Cytochrome P-450, which is the most extensively studied of the monooxygenase proteins, has a heme-iron active center with an axial thiol ligand (a cysteine residue). However, most chemical model investigations use simple iron(III) porphyrins without thiolate ligands. As a result, model mechanisms for cytochrome P-450 invoke a reactive intermediate that is formulated to be equivalent to Compound I of horseradish peroxidase, (por+-)Fe =0, with a high-potential porphyrin cation radical. Such a species would be reduced by thiolate, and therefore is an unreasonable formulation for the reactive center of cytochrome P-450. 

Iron-sulphur clusters are the third type of the widely available electron-transfer sites in biology. They consist of iron ions surrounded by four sulphur ions, either thiolate groups from cysteine residues or inorganic sulphide ions. Regular clusters with one (rubredoxins), two, three, or four (ferredoxins) iron ions are known, as well as a number of more irregular clusters, also with other ligands than cysteine [112,181]. Their reduction potentials vary between -700 and +400 mV [112]. 

The active centre is the iron-protoporphyrin IX with an axial thiolate of a cysteine residue as fifth ligand iron (Fig. 2.2). Resting P450 is in the hexa-coordinate low-spin ferric form. 

---