Binding of the substrate, bicarbonate, to bovine cobalt carbonic anhydrase (carbonate hydrolyase, EC 4.2.1.1) has been studied with 13C nuclear magnetic resonance. Two binding sites for bicarbonate have been identified. One loosely binds bicarbonate, inhibits pnitrophenyl acetate activity, and must be the bicarbonate substrate binding site; the other tightly binds bicarbonate, is noninhibitory, and plays another role. Spinlattice relaxation times for the carbon atom of bicarbonate indicate that the substrate bicarbonate is bound directly to the metal center of the enzyme, while the other bicarbonate is bound in the outer coordination sphere of the metal. It is proposed that dehydration proceeds via HCO3-coordinated directly to the metal center, while the outer sphere bicarbonate facilitates catalytically important proton transfers.The zinc metalloenzyme carbonic anhydrase (carbonate hydro-lyase, EC 4.2.1.1) catalyzes the hydration of CO2 and the dehydration of HCO3-with exceptionally high efficiency. Although much is known of the nature of this enzyme, including the structure of the crystalline human c isozyme to a resolution of 2.0 i. (for a recent review see ref. 1), little is known about the nature of its interaction with substrates. It was to increase our understanding of the latter that we undertook a study of bicarbonate binding to carbonic anhydrase using 1"C nuclear relaxation measurements.18C nuclear relaxation is useful for probing structural features of enzyme-substrate interactions, although the first studies of this type have only recently appeared (2-4). In certain cases, paramagnetic enhancement of nuclear relaxation rates provides a measurement of the distance between the paramagnetic center and the bound substrate (for a recent review see ref. 5).In this study, paramagnetic enhancement of bicarbonate 13C relaxation in solutions of cobalt carbonic anhydrase demonstrates that the substrate is weakly bound to the metal center of the enzyme. Further analysis, combined with a comparison of dissociation constants of the enzyme-bicarbonate complex determined from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments and from inhibition experiments, reveals a noninhibitory, tightly bound bicarbonate in the outer coordination sphere of the metal. We propose that this tightly bound bicarbonate facilitates the proton transfers that are required for the dehydration of the substrate HC03-and the reverse hydration of CO2.
MATERIALS AND METHODSBovine carbonic anhydrase, obtained as a lyophilized material from Worthington Biochemical Corp., was purified by chromatography on Sephadex DEAE A-25 equilibrated with 0.05 M Tris-sulfate buffer, pH 8.7. Elution with the same buffer separated the mixture into three fractions. The first contained carbonic anhydrase, the second superoxide dismutase activity (6), and the third a brownish material, probably derived from hemoglobin.Protein concentrations were determined from the absorbance at 280 nm, using a molar absorptivity of 5.7 X 104 M-1 cm-' (7). Enzymatic activity was...