Primary Citation of Related Structures:   1V55, 1V54
PubMed Abstract: 
Mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase plays an essential role in aerobic cellular respiration, reducing dioxygen to water in a process coupled with the pumping of protons across the mitochondrial inner membrane. An aspartate residue, Asp-51, located near th ...
Mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase plays an essential role in aerobic cellular respiration, reducing dioxygen to water in a process coupled with the pumping of protons across the mitochondrial inner membrane. An aspartate residue, Asp-51, located near the enzyme surface, undergoes a redox-coupled x-ray structural change, which is suggestive of a role for this residue in redox-driven proton pumping. However, functional or mechanistic evidence for the involvement of this residue in proton pumping has not yet been obtained. We report that the Asp-51 --> Asn mutation of the bovine enzyme abolishes its proton-pumping function without impairment of the dioxygen reduction activity. Improved x-ray structures (at 1.8/1.9-A resolution in the fully oxidized/reduced states) show that the net positive charge created upon oxidation of the low-spin heme of the enzyme drives the active proton transport from the interior of the mitochondria to Asp-51 across the enzyme via a water channel and a hydrogen-bond network, located in tandem, and that the enzyme reduction induces proton ejection from the aspartate to the mitochondrial exterior. A peptide bond in the hydrogen-bond network critically inhibits reverse proton transfer through the network. A redox-coupled change in the capacity of the water channel, induced by the hydroxyfarnesylethyl group of the low-spin heme, suggests that the channel functions as an effective proton-collecting region. Infrared results indicate that the conformation of Asp-51 is controlled only by the oxidation state of the low-spin heme. These results indicate that the low-spin heme drives the proton-pumping process.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University, 3-2 Yamada-oka, Suita 565-0871, Japan.
(1S)-2-{[(2-AMINOETHOXY)(HYDROXY)PHOSPHORYL]OXY}-1-[(STEAROYLOXY)METHYL]ETHYL (5E,8E,11E,14E)-ICOSA-5,8,11,14-TETRAENOATE C43 H78 N O8 P ANRKEHNWXKCXDB-BHFWLYLHSA-N
(7R,17E,20E)-4-HYDROXY-N,N,N-TRIMETHYL-9-OXO-7-[(PALMITOYLOXY)METHYL]-3,5,8-TRIOXA-4-PHOSPHAHEXACOSA-17,20-DIEN-1-AMINIUM 4-OXIDE C42 H81 N O8 P JLPULHDHAOZNQI-AUSZDXHESA-O