Jpm. Schelvis et al., LOW-POWER PICOSECOND RESONANCE RAMAN EVIDENCE FOR HISTIDINE LIGATION TO HEME A(3) AFTER PHOTODISSOCIATION OF CO FROM CYTOCHROME-C-OXIDASE, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 119(36), 1997, pp. 8409-8416
Several models have been proposed for the ligand dynamics in the heme
a(3)(2+)/CuB1+ binuclear pocket in cytochrome oxidase following CO; ph
otodissociation. These range from straightforward heme pocket relaxati
on to a variety of ligand exchange processes that have been proposed t
o be of relevance to the proton pumping function of the enzyme. To pro
vide discrimination between these models, we have used picosecond time
-resolved, pump-probe resonance Raman spectroscopy to study the photol
ysis process in the enzyme isolated from beef heart and from Rhodobact
er sphaeroides. The intermediate observed within 5 ps of photolysis wi
th low-energy probe pulses (10-20 nJ/pulse) is the high-spin, five-coo
rdinate heme a(3)(2+) to which a histidine is ligated, as indicated by
the observation of the Fe-His vibration at 220 cm(-1) Several control
experiments demonstrate that the probe pulse energy is sufficiently l
ow to avoid promoting any significant photochemistry during the spectr
al acquisition phase of the pump-probe experiment. From these observat
ions, we conclude that histidine is ligated to high-spin heme a(3)(2+)
on the picosecond time scale following photolysis. Since H376 is the
proximal a(3)(2+) ligand in the CO complex, our results indicate that
this proximal ligation survives photolysis and that the control of the
access of exogenous ligands to the heme as site by means of a ligand
exchange process can be ruled out. We observe similar picosecond trans
ient resonance Raman spectra for the CO complex of Rb. sphaeroides cyt
ochrome c oxidase. From these results and earlier time-resolved Raman
and FTIR measurements, we propose a model for the relaxation dynamics
of the heme as pocket that involves picosecond migration of CO to the
Cu-B center and relaxation of the a(3)(2+)-proximal histidine bond on
the microsecond time scale following CO photolysis.