Volume 271, Number 44,
Issue of November 1, 1996
pp. 27438-27444
©1996 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.
Lack of Electron Transfer from Cytochrome
b5 in Stimulation of Catalytic Activities
of Cytochrome P450 3A4
CHARACTERIZATION OF A RECONSTITUTED CYTOCHROME P450
3A4/NADPH-CYTOCHROME P450 REDUCTASE SYSTEM AND STUDIES WITH
APO-CYTOCHROME b5
(Received for publication, June 27, 1996)
Hiroshi
Yamazaki
,
William W.
Johnson
¶
,
Yune-Fang
Ueng
,
Tsutomu
Shimada
and
F. Peter
Guengerich
From the
Osaka Prefectural Institute of Public
Health, Osaka 537, Japan and the ¶ Department of Biochemistry and
Center in Molecular Toxicology, Vanderbilt University School of
Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee 37232-0146
Many catalytic activities of cytochrome P450
(P450) 3A4, the major human liver P450 enzyme, require cytochrome
b5 (b5) for optimal
rates. The stimulatory effect of b5 on P450
reactions has generally been thought to be due to transfer of electrons
from ferrous b5 to the ferrous
P450-O2-substrate complex. We found that
apo-b5, devoid of heme, could substitute for
b5 in stimulating two prototypic activities,
testosterone 6
hydroxylation and nifedipine oxidation. The
stimulatory effect was not seen with albumin, hemoglobin, catalase, or
cytochrome c. Apo-b5 could not
substitute for b5 in a testosterone 6
hydroxylation system composed of NADH-b5
reductase and P450 3A4. Rates of electron transfer from NADPH-P450
reductase to ferric P450 3A4 were too slow (<2 min
1) to
support testosterone 6
hydroxylation (~14 min
1)
unless b5 or apo-b5 was
present, when rates of ~700 min
1 were measured. The
oxidation-reduction potential (Em,7) of the
ferric/ferrous couple of P450 3A4 was unchanged (~
310 mV) under
different conditions in which the kinetics of reduction were altered by
the addition of substrate and/or apo-b5. Rapid
reduction of P450 3A4 required substrate and a preformed complex of
P450 3A4, NADPH-P450 reductase, and b5; the
rates of binding of the proteins to each other were 2-3 orders of
magnitude less than reduction rates. We conclude that
b5 can facilitate some P450 3A4-catalyzed
oxidations by complexing with P450 3A4 and enhancing its reduction by
NADPH-P450 reductase, without directly transferring electrons to
P450.