Role of copper ion in regulating ligand binding in a myoglobin-based cytochrome c oxidase model

Cytochrome c oxidase (CcO), the terminal enzyme in the mitochondrial respiratory chain, catalyzes the four-electron reduction of dioxygen to water in a binuclear center comprised of a high-spin heme (heme a3) and a copper atom (CuB) coordinated by three histidine residues. As a minimum model for CcO, a mutant of sperm whale myoglobin, named CuBMb, has been engineered, in which a copper atom is held in the distal heme pocket by the native E7 histidine and two nonnative histidine residues. In this work, the role of the copper in regulating ligand binding in CuBMb was investigated. Resonance Raman studies show that the presence of copper in CO-bound CuBMb leads to a CcO-like distal heme pocket. Stopped-flow data show that, upon the initiation of the CO binding reaction, the ligand first binds to the Cu+; it subsequently transfers from Cu+ to Fe2+ in an intramolecular process, similar to that reported for CcO. The high CO affinity toward Cu+ and the slow intramolecular CO transfer rate between Cu+ and Fe2+ in...