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The active site of the oxygen-avid truncated hemoglobin from Bacillus subtilis has been characterized by infrared absorption and resonance Raman spectroscopies, and the dynamics of CO rebinding after photolysis has been investigated by picosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. Resonance Raman experiments on the CO bound adduct revealed the presence of two Fe-CO stretching bands at 545 and 520 cm-1, respectively. Accordingly, two C-O stretching bands at 1924 and 1888 cm-1 were observed in infrared absorption and resonance Raman measurements. The very low C-O stretching frequency at 1888 cm-1 (corresponding to the extremely high RR stretching frequency at 545 cm-1) indicates unusually strong hydrogen bonding between CO and distal residues. On the basis of a comparison with other truncated hemoglobin it is envisaged that the two CO conformers are determined by specific interactions with the TrpG8 and TyrB10 residues. Mutation of TrpG8 to Leu deeply alters the hydrogen-bonding network giving rise mainly to a CO conformer characterized by a Fe-CO stretching band at 489 cm-1 and a CO stretching band at 1958 cm-1. Picosecond laser photolysis experiments carried out on the CO bound adduct revealed dynamical processes that take place within a few nanoseconds after photolysis. Picosecond dynamics is largely dominated by CO geminate rebinding and is consistent with strong H-bonding contributions of TyrB10 and TrpG8 to ligand stabilization.

Resonance Raman (RR) spectra have been acquired for human myeloperoxidase (MPO), and its Met243Thrand Asp94Val mutants with different excitation wavelengths and in polarized light. The proteins were characterized as ferric, ferrous and ferric-CN complexes in order to study the heme configuration in various coordination, spin and oxidation states. Well-defined spectra of the five-coordinate high spin (ferrous), six-coordinate high spin (ferric) and low spin (ferric-CN) species were obtained. The data allowed us to propose an almost complete assignment of the RR bands. The richness of the RR spectra of MPO is because of the activation of almost all the in-plane skeletal modes observed for the Ni-octaethylporphyrin model compound, induced by the distortion of the heme imposed by the covalent links with the protein. The two mutants, which lost at least one of the covalent links between the protein and the heme group, were useful to determine the effect of the symmetry lowering of the heme group.

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