COMPARISON OF THE STRUCTURES OF THE CUBIC AND TETRAGONAL FORMS OF HORSE-SPLEEN APOFERRITIN

Horse-spleen apoferritin is known to crystallize in three different sp ace groups, cubic F-432, tetragonal P42(1)2 and orthorhombic P2(1)2(1) 2. A structure comparison of the cubic and tetragonal forms is present ed here. Both crystal forms were obtained by the vapor-diffusion techn ique and data were collected at 2.26 Angstrom (cubic crystal) and 2.60 Angstrom (tetragonal crystal) resolution. Two main differences were o bserved between these crystal structures: (i) whereas intermolecular c ontacts only involve salt-bridge type interactions via cadmium ions in the cubic structure, two types of interactions are observed in the te tragonal crystal (cadmium-ion-mediated salt bridges and hydrogen-bondi ng interactions) and (ii) cadmium ions bound in the threefold axes of ferritin molecules exhibit lower site-occupation factors in the tetrag onal structure than in the cubic one.