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1 Department of Medicine, University at Buffalo, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Buffalo, New York 14215, USA
2 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Parma, 43100 Parma, Italy
3 Department of Public Health, University of Parma, 43100 Parma, Italy
4 Italian National Institute for the Physics of Matter, University of Parma, 43100 Parma, Italy
Reprint requests to: Robert W. Noble, Department of Medicine, University at Buffalo (SUNY), Buffalo VA Medical Center, 3495 Bailey Ave., Buffalo, New York 14215, USA; e-mail: rnoble{at}acsu.buffalo.edu; fax: (716) 862-6526.
(RECEIVED February 27, 2002; FINAL REVISION April 9, 2002; ACCEPTED April 25, 2002)
Article and publication are at http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/doi/10.1110/ps.0205702.
| Abstract |
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Keywords: Hemoglobin; T quaternary structure; ligand affinity; mutational effects; properties in solution; properties in crystals
Abbreviations: PEG, polyethylene glycol IHP, inositol hexaphosphate HbA, human adult hemoglobin Hb, hemoglobin desArg, human hemoglobin from which the C-terminal arginines of the
subunits have been enzymatically removed desHis, human hemoglobin from which the C-terminal histidines of the ß subunits have been removed deoxyHb, deoxygenated or unliganded hemoglobin
| Introduction |
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Changes in oxygen affinity of Hb are closely paralleled by changes in the affinity for carbon monoxide (CO) in solution (Tan et al. 1973; Ackers 1998). Thus, CO is considered a very good analog of oxygen. Changes in CO affinity are reflected by changes in the second order rate constant for the combination of CO. The low affinity, deoxygenated T quaternary structure of HbA binds CO some 30-fold more slowly than the high affinity R quaternary state or
ß dimers (Gibson 1959; Edelstein et al. 1970). The tertiary Bohr effect in K1, that is, the influence of proton on ligand binding to T-state Hb in solution (Imai and Yonetani 1975), is accompanied by a clear pH dependence in the rate constant for CO combination (Pennelly and Noble 1978; McDonald et al. 1979). In addition, Schreiber and Parkhurst (1984) have pointed out that the correlation between CO affinity and CO combination rate extends to a wide variety of diverse, noncooperative heme proteins. Therefore, the rate of CO combination with deoxygenated HbA, deoxyHbA, offers a convenient parameter with which to approximate changes in the ligand affinity of the deoxyHb tetramer in solution.
Since the first measurements of the oxygen equilibria of crystals of HbA (Mozzarelli et al. 1991), similar measurements have been performed on a series of chemically or genetically modified Hb molecules. With concomitant measurements of the kinetics of CO combination with the deoxygenated derivatives of these Hb molecules in solution, there are now sufficient data to permit the examination of the extent to which these two parameters are correlated.
| Results and Discussion |
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ß dimers. The presence of IHP effectively eliminates this dissociation, permitting the examination of the kinetic properties of the Hb tetramer without the complicating presence of the rapidly reacting dimers (Noble et al. 2001).
In Figure 1
the logarithm of the partial pressure of oxygen required for half saturation of Hb crystals grown from polyethylene glycol (PEG) is plotted as a function of the logarithm of the initial second order rate constant, l`init, for CO combination with deoxyHbs in solution. The logarithmic plot is chosen because of the proportionality of log p50 to the
G° of the equilibrium process and of log l`init to the activation energy of the combination reaction. The line represents the linear least squares fit to the data points. The oxygen affinities of the crystals examined vary over a range of almost 60-fold. The rate constants for CO combination vary by as much as a factor of 20. Over this range of values, the two logarithmic functions show a linear correlation. The slope of the line indicates that on average a 10-fold increase in the oxygen affinity of the crystalline T state is associated with an approximately five-fold increase in the rate of CO combination with the deoxygenated T state in solution in the presence of IHP.
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G° always be divided in the same proportion between the activation energies of the on and off kinetic reactions. This may not be precisely true. Deviations from the loglog relationship could also result in part from differences in the functional properties of the
and ß subunits and the difference in the averaging of the subunit properties that results from the two parameters being examined. The p50 of an equal mixture of two dissimilar binding sites is equal to the square root of the product of the p50 values for the two sites. On the other hand, the CO combination rate yields an arithmetic average of the rate constants of the two types of subunits. Another possibility is indicated by the realization that the two processes being compared, ligand binding to the crystalline T state and the initial attachment of a ligand to the deoxygenated Hb molecule in solution, have an important intrinsic difference. The absence of a Bohr effect in the binding of oxygen to the crystalline T state of Hb implies, and crystallographic examination confirms (Paoli et al. 1996; Luisi et al. 1990), that in the crystal, ligand binding is not associated with disruption of the salt bridges, which are associated with ligand-linked proton release. In contrast, K1 in solution has a significant Bohr effect (Imai and Yonetani 1975; Russo et al. 2001), and this is reflected in a pH dependence in the rate constant for CO combination with deoxyHb (Pennelly and Noble 1978; McDonald et al. 1979). This indicates that in solution, binding a ligand to the deoxyHb molecule involves pH- and ligand-dependent ionizations that do not occur in the crystal. To the extent that a mutation alters these ionizations, it can be expected to have a differential effect on the properties of the T state in the crystal and in solution. It is perhaps notable that the two variants, which deviate most from the fitted line in Figure 1
subunit and the C terminal histidine of the ß subunit have been implicated in the Bohr effect (Kilmartin and Wootton 1970; Bonaventura et al. 1974; Kilmartin et al. 1975), either as a direct source of Bohr protons or through indirect global electrostatic effects (Matthew et al. 1979; Matthew et al. 1982; Sun et al. 1997). Despite imperfections in the correlation between the parameters examined, it is clear from these results that the properties of the T quaternary structure in crystals grown from PEG solutions reflect those of the deoxygenated T state in solution in the presence of the strong allosteric effector IHP. These results are consistent with the crystal lattice selecting for a low affinity subset of the T state conformations, which exist in solution. In solution this low affinity subset must preferentially bind IHP and be selectively populated in its presence. The fidelity of the reproduction of mutational effects, in going from solution to crystal, is potent evidence of functional identity in these two milieus. The maximum affinity change reported here corresponds to a change in the standard free energy of oxygen binding of <2.5 kcal/mole of heme. The changes in the activation energy of the initial CO combination reaction are even smaller. It is hard to imagine such a precise reproduction of mutational effects without great structural similarity in these two environments.
| Materials and methods |
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subunits have been removed. Both are the result of enzymatic hydrolysis (Kavanaugh et al. 1995; Bettati et al. 1997). Measurements of equilibria of oxygen binding to crystals of deoxyHb were performed at 15°C as described by Rivetti et al. (1993a). The rate of the combination of CO with deoxyHb was measured at 20°C by stopped flow procedures in 100 mM HCl-bisTris buffer, 100 µM IHP at pH 7, as described by Doyle et al. (1992). The Hb concentration after mixing was 2 µM in heme equivalents and that of CO was 20 µM.
Most of the data being examined in this paper are taken from a series of articles that appeared in the past decade, beginning with the reports of the oxygen-binding properties of crystals of deoxyHbA grown from PEG solutions (Mozzarelli et al. 1991; Rivetti et al. 1993a). Oxygen equilibrium data have been reported for the crystals of desArg (Kavanaugh et al. 1995) and desHis (Bettati et al. 1997), for the (
)2(ßY35A)2 and (
)2(ßY35F)2 variants (Kavanaugh et al. 2001) and for (
)2(ßW37E)2, (
)2(ßN102A)2, and (
)2(ßN108G)2 (Noble et al. 2001). Studies on the equilibria of oxygen binding to crystals of Hb Rothschild, (
)2(ßW37R)2, have also been reported (Rivetti et al. 1993b). Unlike the other Hb variants described here, the oxygen affinity of crystals of Hb Rothschild changes in response to solution conditions. Specifically, this variant has a chloride ion-binding site at the mutant arginine residue (Kavanaugh et al. 1992), and the binding of chloride ions is negatively linked to the binding of ligand both at the
and at the ß hemes. Included in the comparison here are the measurements reported for Hb Rothschild crystals in chloride-free dilute phosphate buffer and in the standard chloride containing bisTris buffer. However, measurements of oxygen equilibria of crystals of Hb Rothschild were performed at 21°C, whereas all other measurements of O2-binding equilibria were performed at 15°C. Taking the decrease in the oxygen affinity of HbA with a 10° increase in temperature to be a factor of two (Imai 1982), this 6° difference was corrected by subtracting 0.18 from log p50 measured at 21°C.
Data reported here for crystals of (
)2(ßN108L)2, (
Y42A)2(ß)2, and (
)2(ßY145A)2 have not been reported previously. Crystals of the latter variant are uniquely unstable in oxygen-binding measurements, and the reported log p50 was calculated on the basis of fractional saturations determined under metastable conditions (data not shown). As a consequence, this data point is associated with greater uncertainty than the other data presented in this article.
Data for the kinetics of CO combination for each variant generally appear in the same article as the crystal studies except those for HbA and (
Y42A)2(ß)2 (Noble et al. 2001), for desArg Hb (Bettati et al. 1997), and for Hb Rothschild in the presence of 100 µM IHP and the absence or presence of 100 mM chloride, which are reported here for the first time.
In general these combination reactions are accelerating, the apparent rate constant increasing as the reaction proceeds. Because the appropriate comparison is between the properties of the T-state crystal and those of the deoxyHb molecule in solution in the presence of IHP, the available kinetic data were reanalyzed to estimate the rate constant for the initial reaction of CO with deoxyHb. Advantage was taken of our observation that the time course of CO combination kinetics can be well approximated by a two-step, sequential kinetic process:
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Fitting the kinetic transients to the above equation yields a good estimate of the initial reaction rate constant, l`init, which is second order and equal to, or rate limited by, l`1, the rate constant for the binding of the first CO molecule to deoxyHb. It is now possible to examine how well l`init estimates l`1. Recently, the rate constants for the combination of the first CO molecule with the symmetrical FeZn hybrids of HbA and a series of variants, including ßW37E, have been reported (Noble et al. 2001). These are Hbs in which the heme groups of either both
subunits or both ß subunits have been replaced by zinc protoporphyrin IX. Because the Zn porphyrin is an excellent mimic of unliganded heme, but is unable to bind a ligand, these measurements yield the separate values of l`1 for the
and for the ß subunits. The average of the l`1 values for the two types of subunits yields an estimate of l`1 for the heme-containing tetramer. In Table 1
, log l`1 estimated in this way is compared with log l`init for this series of Hbs in the presence of IHP. The close correspondence between log l`1 and log l`init is evident.
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| Acknowledgments |
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The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Dedication
Max Perutz long advocated the position that the structures of proteins in crystals are relevant to the understanding of function in solution. The work reported here strongly supports this point of view, and we wish to dedicate this article to him.
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