Formation of a Three-Electron Sulfur-Sulfur Bond as a Probe for Interaction between Side Chains of Methionine Residues.

The mechanism of oxidation processes of l-Met-(Pro)n-l-Met peptides that contain two Met residues located on the N- and C-terminal and separated by a defined number (n = 0-4) of proline residues was investigated in aqueous solutions using pulse radiolysis. The use of such peptides allowed for distance control between the sulfur atoms located in the side chains of the Met residues. The formation of a contact between the side chains of the Met residues was probed by the observation of transients with σ*-type 2c-3e S∴S and S∴O bonds as well as of α-(alkylthio)alkyl radicals (αS). This approach enabled the monitoring, in real time, of the efficiency and kinetics of interactions between methionine side chains. Such knowledge is important, inter alia, for long-distance electron transfer processes because methionine side chains can serve as relay stations and also for many aspects of protein folding when the formation of a contact between two amino acid residues in an unfolded polypeptide chain plays a central role in protein-folding mechanisms. The yields of these transients (measured as G-values) were found to be dependent on the number of Pro residues; however, they were not dependent in a simple way on the average distance ⟨rS-S⟩ between the sulfur atoms in Met residues. A decrease in the yield of the (S∴S)(+) species with an increase in the number of Pro residues in the bridge occurred at the expense of an increase in the yields of the intramolecular three-electron-bonded (S∴O)(+) radical cations and αS radicals. A detailed understanding of these trends in the chemical yields was developed by modeling the underlying chemical kinetics with Langevin dynamical simulations of the various oligoproline peptide chains and combining them with a simple statistical mechanical theory on the end-to-end contact rates for polymer chains. This analysis showed that the formation of a contact between terminal Met residues in the peptides with 0-2 Pro residues was controlled by the activated formation of (S∴S)(+) whereas in the peptides with 3 and 4 Pro residues, by the relative diffusion of the sulfur radical cation and unoxidized sulfur atom. In this picture, the dynamics of the other radical products can be seen to be only indirectly dependent on the length of the proline bridges because their formation is in competition with (S∴S)(+) formation.