Electrostatic Environment of Hemes in Proteins: pKas of Hydroxyl Ligands

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Abstract
The pKas of ferric aquo−heme and aquo−heme electrochemical midpoints (Ems) at pH 7 in sperm whale myoglobin, Aplysia myoblogin, hemoglobin I, heme oxygenase 1, horseradish peroxidase and cytochrome c oxidase were calculated with Multi-Conformation Continuum Electrostatics (MCCE). The pKas span 3.3 pH units from 7.6 in heme oxygenase 1 to 10.9 in peroxidase, and the Ems range from −250 mV in peroxidase to 125 mV in Aplysia myoglobin. Proteins with higher in situ ferric aquo−heme pKas tend to have lower Ems. Both changes arise from the protein stabilizing a positively charged heme. However, compared with values in solution, the protein shifts the aquo−heme Ems more than the pKas. Thus, the protein has a larger effective dielectric constant for the protonation reaction, showing that electron and proton transfers are coupled to different conformational changes that are captured in the MCCE analysis. The calculations reveal a breakdown in the classical continuum electrostatic analysis of pairwise interactions. Comparisons with DFT calculations show that Coulomb's law overestimates the large unfavorable interactions between the ferric water−heme and positively charged groups facing the heme plane by as much as 60%. If interactions with CuB in cytochrome c oxidase and Arg 38 in horseradish peroxidase are not corrected, the pKa calculations are in error by as much as 6 pH units. With DFT corrected interactions calculated pKas and Ems differ from measured values by less than 1 pH unit or 35 mV, respectively. The in situ aquo−heme pKa is important for the function of cytochrome c oxidase since it helps to control the stoichiometry of proton uptake coupled to electron transfer [Song, Michonova-Alexova, and Gunner (2006) Biochemistry 45, 7959-7975].