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Pseudocontact shifts used in the restraint of the solution structures of electron transfer complexes

Nature Structural Biology volume 3, pages 333–339 (1996)Cite this article

Abstract

The geometry of the ferricytochrome b5-ferricytochrome c complex has been analysed using long-range interprotein paramagnetic dipolar shifts. Heteronuclear filtered NMR spectra of samples containing 15N-labelled cytochrome b5 in complex with unlabelled cytochrome c allowed unambiguous assessment of pseudocontact shifts relative to diamagnetic reference states. Because pseudocontact shifts can be observed for protons as much as 20 Å from the paramagnetic centre, this approach allows study of electron transfer proteins in fast exchange. Our findings provide the first physical evidence confirming hypotheses presented in previous theoretical studies. The absence of certain predicted shifts that are expected based on the best fit to a static model of the complex suggests that cytochrome b5 is more dynamic in solution than in the crystal, in agreement with molecular dynamics simulations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Maryland at Baltimore, 20 North Pine Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21201

    R.D. Guiles, Siddhartha Sarma & Russell J. DiGate

  2. the Medical Biotechnology Center, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, 618 W. Lombard Sreet, 2nd Floor, Baltimore, Maryland, 21201, USA

    R.D. Guiles, Siddhartha Sarma & Russell J. DiGate

  3. Medicinal Chemistry Department, ZENECA Pharmaceuticals, 1800 Concord Pike, Wilmington, Delaware, 19897, USA

    Debra Banville

  4. Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, California, 94143, USA

    Vladimir J. Basus & Irwin D. Kuntz

  5. Department of Anesthesia and the Liver Center, UCSF and the VA Medical Center, 4150 Clement Street, San Francisco, California, 94121, USA

    Lucy Waskell

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  7. Lucy Waskell
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Guiles, R., Sarma, S., DiGate, R. et al. Pseudocontact shifts used in the restraint of the solution structures of electron transfer complexes. Nat Struct Mol Biol 3, 333–339 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsb0496-333

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