Rat liver and horse kidney metallothioneins react with 5,5'-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid) (Nbs2) to release 5-thio-2-nitrobenzoate and metal ions. The reactions are slow and exhibit biphasic kinetics with each process having an empirical rate law of the form:where RSM represents metal-bound thiolate groups.The pseudo-first-order rates are insensitive to pH but are modified in guanidine hydrochloride solution. Rat liver metallothioneins of variable zinc, copper and cadmium composition react similarly and give observable thiol/total metal ratios in good agreement with stoichiometries of SH/(Cd + Zn) of 3 and SH/Cu of 1. A model complex cadmium-2,3-dimercaptopropanol, resembles the protein in its reaction with Nbs2'

It is demonstrated that the distribution of metals among the Sephadex G-75 fractions of rat liver and horse kidney supernatant is altered by exposure to oxidizing conditions. In particular, the metals bound to metallothionein are displaced into high-molecular-weight fractions and, to a lesser extent, into the low-molecular-weight forms, under aerobic conditions. In this process, metallothionein zinc is much more labile than cadmium. An appreciable proportion of the thionein is also found in the high-molecular-weight fractions and can be recovered along with the metals by treatment with mercaptoethanol. This result shows that the distributions obtained aerobically with large cadmium content in the high-molecular-weight fractions are an artefact due to metallothionein oxidation and suggests that 'spillage' of metals such as cadmium may be due in large part to oxidative processes rather than saturation effects. Evidence is presented that disulphide-bond formation occurs as thionein becomes bound in the high-molecular-weight region and that chemical reduction is necessary to restore its normal elution behaviour. Mercaptoethanol added to the homogenates maintains the reducing conditions normally found in the cellular milieu and prevents the oxidation of the metallothionein redistribution of the metals during isolation. Under these conditions the rat liver metallothionein isolated from animals exposed to chronic low concentrations of cadmium in drinking water contains appreciable quantities of copper as well as zinc and contains much of the zinc that is present in horse kidney supernatants. Metallothionein can also be extracted from a 40 000g pellet after sonication of the pellet. Thus careful analytical studies of the sites of cadmium deposition in rat liver indicate that greater than 95% is bound to metallothionein.

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