J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 264, Issue 34, 20385-20393, Dec, 1989
Cysteine labeling studies of beef heart aconitase containing a 4Fe, a cubane 3Fe, or a linear 3Fe cluster
DW Plank, MC Kennedy, H Beinert and JB Howard
Department of Biochemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455.
The reactivity of cysteines following cluster destruction by iron chelation
was investigated for [4Fe-4S]2+ and cubane [3Fe-4S]+ beef heart aconitase.
When the chelator orthobathophenanthroline disulfonate was used, the
formation of sulfur-sulfur bonds and the retention of inorganic sulfur from
the cluster was observed. For both the 4Fe and 3Fe forms of aconitase, the
two cysteines in peptide 7, the cysteine in peptide 3, and the cysteine in
peptide 2 were found as the primary constituents of sulfur-sulfur bonds
(the peptide sequences and nomenclature are from Plank, D. W., and Howard,
J. B. (1988) J. Biol. Chem. 263, 8184-8189). Three of these four cysteines
(peptides 3 and 7) correlated with those proposed to be cluster ligands
recently determined by x-ray crystallography (Robbins, A. H. and Stout, C.
D. (1989) Proteins, in press; Robbins, A. H., and Stout, C. D.,, (1989)
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 86, 3639-3643) for pig heart aconitase. A
mechanism is proposed whereby the greater affinity of
orthobathophenanthroline disulfonate for Fe2+ relative to Fe3+ shifts the
equilibrium toward reduction of ferric iron through sulfur-sulfur bond
formation at the cluster site. Aconitase which has been oxidized with
ferricyanide and from which the cluster iron has been removed by EDTA has
been shown to have two di- or polysulfides (Kennedy, M. C., and Beinert, H.
(1988) J. Biol. Chem. 263, 8194-8198). The cysteines found in the
sulfur-sulfur bonds generated by this treatment also were predominantly
those from peptides 3 and 7. In addition, the putative thiol ligands for
the linear [3Fe-4S]+ cluster of aconitase are reported. The four cysteines
of peptides 7 and 9 (two in each peptide) were found to be protected by the
cluster from alkylation when the protein was denatured. The difference in
the ligands between the cubane and linear forms indicates that a specific
thiol exchange occurs during the conversion.