In a previous study on cyanomethemoglobin the 10 tetrameric species (each with a unique combination of ligated and unligated subunits) were found to exhibit three distinct free energies of cooperative interaction. The distribution of these free energies among the partially ligated species is incompatible with a two-state mechanism of molecular switching and requires a minimum of three molecular structures with distinctly different free energies of heme-heme interaction. Ligand-linked transitions between the three cooperativity states were found to be "combinatorial"-i.e., dependent upon changes in both the number and specific configuration of bound ligands. Here we present results from two other chemical systems that mimic intermediate oxygenation states. In these systems the heme iron is replaced by manganese in certain of the subunits. We find the same distribution of cooperative free energies as reported for the cyanomethemoglobin system. These results demonstrate that the three-state combinatorial nature of cooperative switching is neither a special feature of the cyanomet reactions nor of the substitution of manganese for iron, but reflects a fundamental property of hemoglobin. These findings are compared with crystallographic structural results on partially ligated hemoglobins. (Fig. 2). In view of the potential significance of these findings to the mechanism of hemoglobin cooperativity, it is essential to determine whether three-state combinatorial switching is a special property of the cyanomet reactions with hemoglobin and whether the three levels of cooperativity correspond to distinct molecular structures. In the present study we determined the cooperative free energies for partially ligated tetramers in two additional, chemically different, systems that mimic partially ligated tetramers. The species we have studied are depicted in Fig. 3: in system A the hemes are replaced in some of the subunits by Mn2+ protoporphyrin IX, providing a functional analog of unligated subunits (2, 14) while the remaining subunits have normal hemes that are ligated with carbon monoxide (CO); in system B, the unligated subunits contain normal heme while the ligated subunits contain hemes replaced by Mn3+ protoporphyrin IX.
01Here we analyze the functional energetics of these systems in terms of the minimum number of molecular structures required. We will also compare the energetics with crystallographic results (3, 4). AG, = AGi -iAG~,where AGQ is the standard Gibbs free energy for reacting i moles of ligand with a tetramer and AG. is the intrinsic free energy per site for the same reaction in the absence of cooperativity (5). In hemoglobin tetramers iAGx generally has a larger negative value (higher affinity) than AG, so that AGc is positive. A finding that AGc = 3.0 kcal (1 cal = 4.18 J) for Abbreviation: MWC, Monod-Wyman-Changeux.
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