Electronic state of heme in cytochrome oxidase III. The magnetic susceptibility of beef heart cytochrome oxidase and some of its derivatives from 7-200 K. Direct evidence for an antiferromagnetically coupled Fe (III)/Cu (II) pair.

The temperature dependence of the paramagnetic susceptibility of cytochrome oxidase and some of its derivatives has been measured from 7 to 200 K. The results obtained for the fully oxidized (resting) enzyme correspond exactly to the requirements of the model recently proposed by Palmer et al. (Palmer, G., Babcock, G. T., and Vickery, L. E. (1976) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 73, 2206-2210) in which the enzyme possesses two magnetically isolated spin S = 1/2 centers and a spin-coupled S = 2 center. The S = 2 center paramagnetism has been interpreted as arising from a [cytochrome a33+(S = 5/2)--Cuu2+(S = 1/2)] antiferromagnetically coupled iron.copper binuclear complex of total spin S = 2 with -J greater than or equal to 200 cm-1. In addition, the wide temperature range used in the present studies has permitted an analysis of present and other available data (T less than 4K measurements) which readily accommodates results from this and other laboratories (Moss, T.H., Shapiro, E., King, T.E., Beinert, H., and Hartzell, C. R. (1978) J. Biol. Chem 253, 8072-8073) so that a fully consistent picture of the magnetic centers in cytochrome oxidase now appears to be available. Furthermore, anomalous magnetic behavior for the oxidized enzyme.cyanide complex has been interpreted in terms of an antiferromagnetic exchange interaction operating in the binuclear complex [cytochrome a33+.CN-(S = 1/2)--Cuu2+(S = 1/2)] with -J congruent to 40 cm-1. A structural model for the [cytochrome a3(3+)-bridge-CUu2+] center is advanced in which an imidazolate ion serves as the bridging ligand in a manner similar to that found in superoxide dismutase.