Abstract: The acidic transition of porcine plasminogen, prepared by affinity chromatography, was studied by non-destructive methods. These methods are based on the analysis of the behaviour of the tryptophyls under various conditions. The perturbation of the absorption and emission spectra by pH or temperature and the dynamic quenching of the intrinsic fluorescence are used to obtain information on structural changes which affect the environment of these residues. It is shown that by decreasing pH the fluorescence emission spectra are shifted toward the long wavelengths, with a broadening of the fluorescence band. The same effect can be obtained at constant pH by heating the protein solution. In order to analyze these phenomena, it is assumed that the fluorescence intensities at 355 nm and 328 nm reflect the proportion of the tryptophans which are exposed to the solvent, and buried, respectively. The plot of the ratio of the fluorescence intensities at these wavelengths versus pH or temperature leads to a titration curve showing an unmasking of tryptophans. The proportion of exposed tryptophans is measured by the dynamic fluorescence quenching technique and the data analyzed according to Lehrer. The plot of the fraction of exposed tryptophyls versus pH also shows the unmasking of these chromophores. Thermal perturbation of a solution of plaminogen at neutral pH induces a difference absorption spectrum whose amplitudes at the maxima are proportional to the number of exposed aromatic residues. The comparison with a solution of fully denatured plasminogen in 6 M guanidium chloride, where all the tryptophyls are exposed, shows that the percentage of exposure is equal to 59%. This number is significantly higher than the percentage found by the fluorescence quenching technique (20%), indicating that some tryptophyls are located in crevices, exposed to the solvent but not to the iodide. At acidic pH the absorption difference spectra induced by thermal perturbation are not classical, since they show an inversion and a new band between 300 nm and 305 nm. This band is mentioned in the literature as a minor band of tryptophan which appears when this chromophore is located in an asymmetric environment. On plotting the maximum amplitude of these spectra obtained at acidic pH versus temperature, we obtain a curve indicating that two types of antagonistic interactions are involved in the perturbation of the chromophores spectra. The spectrophotometric titration of plasminogen gives classical absorption difference spectra. By plotting the maximum amplitude at 292 nm versus pH, we obtain a titration curve with an apparent pK of 2.9 units. This pK is acidic which respect to the pK value of a normal carboxyl. This low value can be due to a positively charged group in the neighbourhood of a carboxyl, which interacts with one or more chromophores. When the carboxyl becomes protonated, this positively charged group is free and available to perturb the environment of some chromophores...

Abstract: Equilibrium, stopped flow, and temperature-jump spectrophotometry have been used to identify processes in the unfolding of ferricytochrome c in acidic aqueous solutions. A relaxation occurring in approximately 100 microseconds involves perturbation of a spin-equilibrium between two folded conformers of the protein with methionine-80 coordinated or dissociated from the heme iron. The protein unfolds more slowly, in milliseconds, with dissociation and protonation of histidine-18. These two transitions appear cooperative in equilibrium measurements at low (0.01 M) ionic strength, but are separated at higher (0.10 M) ionic strength. They are resolved under both conditions in the dynamic measurements. The spin-equilibrium description permits a unified explanation of a number of properties of ferricytochrome c in acidic aqueous solutions.

Abstract: The ferric form of the haem undecapeptide, derived from horse cytochrome c by peptic digestion, undergoes at least three pH-induced transitions with pK values of 3.4, 5.8 and 7.6. Temperature-jump experiments suggest that the first of these is due to the binding of a deprotonated imidazole group to the feric iron while the second and third arise from the binding of the two available amino groups present (the alpha-NH2 of valine and the epsilon-NH2 of lysine). Molecular models indicate that steric retraints on the peptide dictate that these amino groups may only coordinate to iron atoms via intermolecular bonds, thus leading to the polymerization of the peptide. Cyanide binding studies are in agreement with these conclusions and also yield a value of 3.6 X 10(6) M-1 s-1 for the intrinsic combination constant of CN- anion with the haem. A model is proposed which describes the pH-dependent properties of the ferric undecapeptide.

Abstract: 1,4,5,6-Tetrahydronicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (H2NADH) has been investigated as a reduced coenzyme analog in the reaction between trans-4-N,N-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde (I) (lambdamax 398 nm, epsilonmax 3.15 X 10-4 M-minus 1 cm-minus 1) and the horse liver alcohol dehydrogenase-NADH complex. These equilibrium binding and temperature-jump kinetic studies establish the following. (i) Substitution of H2NADH for NADH limits reaction to the reversible formation of a new chromophoric species, lambdamax 468 nm, epsilonmax 5.8 x 10-4 M-minus 1 cm-minus 1. This chromophore is demonstrated to be structurally analogous to the transient intermediate formed during the reaction of I with the enzyme-NADH complex [Dunn, M. F., and Hutchison, J. S. (1973), Biochemistry 12, 4882]. (ii) The process of intermediate formation with the enzyme-NADH complex is independent of pH over the range 6.13-10.54. Although studies were limited to the pH range 5.98-8.72, a similar pH independence appears to hold for the H2NADH system. (iii) Within the ternary complex, I is bound within van der Waal's contact distance of the coenzyme nicotinamide ring. (iv) Formation of the transient intermediate does not involve covalent modification of coenzyme. Based on these findings, we conclude that zinc ion has a Lewis acid function in facilitating the chemical activation of the aldehyde carbonyl for reduction, and that reduced coenzyme plays a noncovalent effector role in this substrate activating step.