Following a myocardial infarction (MI) cells die or are damaged and their contents leak into the blood circulation, resulting in elevated serum levels of various enzymes, proteins, and organic molecules. Over the past few decades, it has become standard practice to employ the detection of these elevated substances as markers for the confirmation of MIs and to monitor MI patients' response to treatment. Although it has previously been shown that cytochrome-c, a small respiratory protein, is among those elevated, the lack of a suitable detection system has prevented its routine use in the diagnosis of MIs. We present a preliminary study in which chemiluminescence was employed to detect elevated levels of cytochrome-c in the serum of MI patients. The technique, which is specific for c-type proteins, is approx 30 times more sensitive than the traditional Coomassie blue stain and can detect as little as 0.03 microg of protein. It also has potential for diagnostic use in other diseases that are characterized by mitochondrial damage.

No abstract

Complexes of cytochrome c oxidase and cytochrome c (Fe- or Zn-containing) have been prepared by 1-ethyl-3-[3-(dimethylamino)propyl]carbodi-imide (EDC) cross-linking. The site to which the cytochrome c covalently binds has been identified as being the same, or close to, the site occupied by cytochrome c in the electrostatic complex which may be formed between the proteins. Stopped-flow experiments, monitored either at a single wavelength or through a rapid wavelength-scan facility, showed that covalently bound Fe-containing cytochrome c cannot donate electrons to cytochrome a. Free Fe-containing cytochrome c was, however, able to transfer electrons to cytochrome a in covalent complexes containing either Fe- or Zn-containing cytochrome c. Turnover experiments showed that the complexed enzyme remains catalytically competent but with decreased (40-80%) activity. The steady-state levels of reduction of both free cytochrome c and cytochrome a in the covalent complex were higher than found in the control (uncomplexed) enzyme. These results are discussed with reference to the structure of the covalent complex and lead us to conclude that cytochrome a may accept electrons directly from free cytochrome c and that cross-linking impairs the redox properties of the CuA site.

Hypertension

Cytochrome c oxidase (Cox) accepts electrons from its substrate, cytochrome c and passes these to oxygen, which is reduced to water. Kinetic studies show that an active form of the enzyme (pulsed) and a slower form (resting) exists. More efficient internal electron transfer and the switching of the enzyme's oxygen/ligand binding site between opened and closed positions are said to account for the different rates of reduction. We employed bio-computing to analyse the structure of the oxygen/ligand binding site of bovine Cox under different redox states; a comparison with Thermus thermophilus Cox was also conducted. The study detected that the ligand binding site of Cox is exposed to the contents of the intermembrane space, and that the side chain of haem a 3 , located at the enzyme's oxygen/ligand binding site, approached Pro-69 and Ile-34 in faraway subunit-II. However, no open-to-closed gating structures were detected at the ligand binding site. We concluded that the resting-to-pulse transition in Cox does not involve opening-up of the ligand binding site. We propose that the rates of ligand/oxygen/cyanide binding are partly controlled by "queuing" near the binding site and that the binding of oxygen to haem a 3-CuB triggers the resting-to-pulsed transition via long-range conformational changes.