Abstact

Cytochrome c(3) is a 14 kDa tetrahaem protein that plays a central role in the bioenergetic metabolism of Desulfovibrio spp. This involves an energy transduction mechanism made possible by a complex network of functional cooperativities between redox and redox/protolytic centres (the redox-Bohr effect), which enables cytochrome c(3) to work as a proton activator. The three-dimensional structures of the oxidised and reduced Desulfovibrio gigas cytochrome c(3) in solution were solved using 2D (1)H-NMR data. The reduced protein structures were calculated using INDYANA, an extended version of DYANA that allows automatic calibration of NOE data. The oxidised protein structure, which includes four paramagnetic centres, was solved using the program PARADYANA, which also includes the structural paramagnetic parameters. In this case, initial structures were used to correct the upper and lower volume restraints for paramagnetic leakage, and angle restraints derived from (13)C Fermi contact shifts of haem moiety substituents were used for the axial histidine ligands. Despite the reduction of the NOE intensities by paramagnetic relaxation, the final family of structures is of similar precision and accuracy to that obtained for the reduced form. Comparison of the two structures shows that, although the global folds of the two families of structures are similar, significant localised differences occur upon change of redox state, some of which could not be detected by comparison with the X-ray structure of the oxidised state: (1) there is a redox-linked concerted rearrangement of Lys80 and Lys90 that results in the stabilisation of haem moieties II and III when both molecules are oxidised or both are reduced, in agreement with the previously measured positive redox cooperativity between these two haem moieties. This cooperativity regulates electron transfer, enabling a two-electron step adapted to the function of cytochromes c(3) as the coupling partner of hydrogenase; and (2) the movement of haem I propionate 13 towards the interior of the protein upon reduction explains the positive redox-Bohr effect, establishing the structural basis for the redox-linked proton activation mechanism necessary for energy conservation, driving ATP synthesis.