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Almost without exception, c-type cytochromes have heme covalently attached via two thioether linkages to the cysteine residues of a CXXCH motif. The reasons for the covalent attachment are not understood. Reported here is cytoplasmic expression in Escherichia coli of AXXCH and CXXAH variants of cytochrome c(552) from Hydrogenobacter thermophilus; remarkably, the single thioether bond proteins have, apart from an altered visible absorption spectrum, almost identical properties, including thermal stability and reduction potential, to the wild type CXXCH protein. In combination with previous work showing that an AXXAH variant of cytochrome c(552) is much less stable than the CXXCH form, it can be concluded that covalent attachment of heme via either of thioether bonds is sufficient to confer considerable stability and that these bonds contribute little to the setting of the reduction potential. The absence of AXXCH or CXXAH heme-binding motifs from bacterial cytochromes c may relate to the coexistence of the assembly pathway with that for formation of disulfide bonds in the bacterial periplasm.

Original publication

DOI

10.1074/jbc.M004022200

Type

Journal article

Journal

J Biol Chem

Publication Date

20/10/2000

Volume

275

Pages

32530 - 32534

Keywords

Amino Acid Sequence, Amino Acid Substitution, Bacteria, Aerobic, Base Sequence, Binding Sites, Cloning, Molecular, Cysteine, Cytochrome c Group, Escherichia coli, Guanidine, Heme, Kinetics, Molecular Sequence Data, Mutagenesis, Site-Directed, Oligodeoxyribonucleotides, Protein Denaturation, Protein Folding, Recombinant Proteins, Templates, Genetic