The tritiated chiral alkanes (S)-[1-2 H 1 ,1-3 H]ethane, (R)-[1-2 H 1 ,1-3 H]ethane, (S)-[1-2 H 1 ,1-3 H]butane, (R)-[1-2 H 1 ,1-3 H]butane, (S)-[2-3 H]butane, (R)-[2-3 H]butane, and racemic [2-3 H]butane were oxidized by soluble methane monooxygenase (sMMO) from Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath), and the absolute stereochemistry of the resulting product alcohols was determined in order to probe the mechanism of substrate hydroxylation. When purified hydroxylase, coupling protein, and reductase components were used, the product alcohol displayed 72% retention of stereochemistry at the labeled carbon for the ethane substrates and 77% retention for the butanes labeled at the primary carbon. A putative alkyl radical which would yield these product distributions would have a lifetime of 100 fs, a value too short to correspond to a discrete intermediate. Intramolecular k H /k D ratios of 3.4 and 2.2 were determined for ethane and butane, respectively. When the hydroxylations were performed with purified hydroxylase but only a partially purified cellular extract for the coupling and reductase proteins, different product distributions were observed. These apparently anomalous results could be explained by invoking exchange of hydrogen atoms at the R carbon of the product alcohols. The characteristics of this exchange reaction are discussed. Hydroxylation of [2-3 H]butanes by the latter system yielded ∼90% retention of stereochemistry at the labeled carbon. The implication of these results for the catalytic mechanism of sMMO is discussed. Together with the mechanistic information available from a range of substrate probes, the results are best accounted for by a nonsynchronous concerted process involving attack on the C-H bond by one or more of several pathways discussed in the text.
Reduction of the soluble methane monooxygenase hydroxylase (MMOH) from Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) in frozen 4:1 buffer/glycerol solutions at 77 K by mobile electrons generated by gamma-irradiation produces an EPR-detectable, mixed-valent Fe(II)Fe(III) center. At this temperature the conformation of the enzyme remains essentially unaltered during reduction, so the mixed-valent EPR spectra serve to probe the active site structure of the EPR-silent, diiron(III) state. The EPR spectra of the cryoreduced samples reveal that the diiron(III) cluster of the resting hydroxylase has at least two chemically distinct forms, the structures of which differ from that of the equilibrium Fe(II)Fe(III) site. Their relative populations depend on pH, the presence of component B, and formation of the MMOH/MMOB complex by reoxidation of the reduced, diiron(II) hydroxylase. The formation of complexes between MMOB, MMOR, and the oxidized hydroxylase does not measurably affect the structure of the diiron(III) site. Cryogenic reduction in combination with EPR spectroscopy has also provided information about interaction of MMOH in the diiron(III) state with small molecules. The diiron(III) center binds methanol and phenols, whereas DMSO and methane have no measurable effect on the EPR properties of cryoreduced hydroxylase. Addition of component B favors the binding of some exogenous ligands, such as DMSO and glycerol, to the active site diiron(III) state and markedly perturbs the structure of the diiron(III) cluster complexed with methanol or phenol. The results reveal different reactivity of the Fe(III)Fe(III) and Fe(II)Fe(III) redox states of MMOH toward exogenous ligands. Moreover, unlike oxidized hydroxylase, the binding of exogenous ligands to the protein in the mixed-valent state is allosterically inhibited by MMOB. The differential reactivity of the hydroxylase in its diiron(III) and mixed-valent states toward small molecules, as well as the structural basis for the regulatory effects of component B, is interpreted in terms of a model involving carboxylate shifts of a flexible glutamate ligand at the Fe(II)Fe(III) center.
We report thermodynamic data for the chemical denaturation of iso-1-cytochromes c from Saccharomyces cerevisiae having amino acid substitutions R38A, N52I, and F82S in all possible combinations. The guanidine hydrochloride denaturation of isolated proteins was monitored by fluorescence measurements. The redox potentials, Eo', for both the folded and unfolded conformations have been measured. Free energy changes of chemical unfolding together with direct electrochemical measurement of the free energy changes of reduction for both the native and unfolded proteins yield a complete thermodynamic cycle, which includes four states of cytochrome c: oxidized folded, oxidized unfolded, reduced folded, and reduced unfolded. Completed cycles illustrate that the stability of cytochrome c to denaturing conditions is different for each amino acid substitution by an amount that depends on the heme oxidation state. Thus, the differential protein stability cannot be interpreted simply in terms of a hydrophobic effect, without also considering coupled Coulombic effects.
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