Metalloproteins catalyze some of the most difficult and yet important functions in Nature, such as photosynthesis and water oxidation. An ultimate test of our knowledge of how metalloproteins work is by designing novel metalloproteins. Such design can not only reveal hidden structural features that may be missing from studies of native metalloproteins and their variants, but also result in new metalloenzymes for biotechnological and pharmaceutical applications. While it is much more challenging to design metalloproteins than non-metalloproteins, much progress has been made in this area, particularly toward functional design, thanks to recent progress in areas such as computational and structural biology.

In endothelial cells, the RhoGTPase Rac1 stabilizes VE-cadherin trans-dimers in mature adherens junctions by counteracting actomyosin tension.

The interactions of the axial ligands with copper are known to be important in tuning spectroscopic and redox properties of cupredoxins. While conversion of blue copper sites with a weak axial ligand to green copper sites containing a medium strength axial ligand has been demonstrated in cupredoxins, converting blue copper sites to a red copper site with a strong axial ligand has not been reported. Here we show that replacing Met121 in azurin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa with Cys caused an increased ratio (RL) of absorption at 447 nm over that at 621 nm. While no axial Cu-S(Cys121) interaction in Met121Cys was detectable by the extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) at pH 5, similar to what was observed in WT azurin with Met121 as the axial ligand, the Cu-S(Cys121) interaction at 2.74 Å is clearly visible at higher pH. Despite the higher RL and stronger axial Cys121 interaction with Cu(II) ion, the Met121Cys variant remains largely a type 1 copper protein at low pH (with hyperfine coupling constant A|| = 54 × 10−4 cm−1 at pH 4 and 5), or distorted type 1 or green copper protein at high pH (A|| = 87 × 10−4 cm−1 at pH 8 and 9), attributable to the relatively long distance between the axial ligand and copper and the constraint placed by the protein scaffold. To shorten the distance between axial ligand and copper, we replaced Met121 with the nonproteinogenic amino acid homocysteine that contains an extra methylene group, resulting in a variant whose spectra (RL= 1.5, and A|| = 180 × 10−4 cm−1) and Cu-S(Cys) distance (2.22 Å) are very similar to those of the red copper protein nitrosocyanin. Replacing Met121 with Cys resulted in lowering of the reduction potential from 222 mV in the native azurin to 95 ± 3 mV for Met121Cys azurin and 113 ± 6 mV for Met121Hcy at pH 7. The results strongly support the “coupled distortion” model that helps explain axial ligand tuning of spectroscopic properties in cupredoxins, and demonstrate the power of using unnatural amino acids to address critical chemical biological questions.