J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 266, Issue 34, 22858-22865, Dec, 1991
The effects of p-hydroxymercuribenzoic acid modification and heat treatment on the CuA reduction potential of cytochrome c oxidase
ZY Li, RW Larsen, LP Pan and SI Chan
A. A. Noyes Laboratory of Chemical Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena 91125.
p-Hydroxymercuribenzoic acid modification of cytochrome c oxidase converts
the CuA center into a type 2 copper site while heat treatment of the
oxidase in lauryl maltoside can transform CuA almost stoichiometrically
(greater than 90%) to a blue type 1 copper site. These modifications of the
protein have previously been shown to have a profound effect on the
dioxygen reduction and proton pumping activities of the enzyme (Li, P. M.,
Morgan, J. E., Nilsson, T., Ma, M., and Chan, S. I. (1988) Biochemistry 27,
7538; Nilsson, T., Gelles, J., Li, P. M., and Chan, S. I. (1988)
Biochemistry 27, 296; Sone, N., and Nicholls, P. (1984) Biochemistry 23,
6550). In this work, the intrinsic reduction potentials and the midpoint
reduction potentials of the "CuA" site in both these modified oxidases have
been measured under various conditions in order to clarify the
intramolecular electron transfer pathways in these systems. The study
reveals that the CuA intrinsic reduction potential decreases by almost 150
mV upon p- hydroxymercuribenzoic acid modification whereas it increases by
100 mV upon heat treatment. In addition, the redox interactions between CuA
and the remaining metal centers are perturbed upon CuA modification. It is
argued that these results bear on the role of CuA in the proton- pumping
paradigm of cytochrome c oxidase.