A comparison of the resonance Raman properties of the fast and slow forms of cytochrome oxidase.

Resonance Raman (RR) spectra of the "rapid" and "slow" forms (Baker et al., 1987) of resting cytochrome oxidase obtained with Soret excitation at 413.1 nm are reported. There are a number of conspicuous differences between the two forms in the high-frequency region of the RR spectrum which involve changes in Raman intensity arising from a blue shift in the Soret maximum of cytochrome a3 upon conversion to the slow form. In the low-frequency region a peak present at 223 cm-1 in the rapid form shifts to 220 cm-1 in the slow form; this peak is assigned as the cytochrome a3 Fe(III)-N(His-Im) stretch. The slow form of the enzyme possesses greater intensity in RR peaks near 1620 cm-1 which have been previously attributed by others to partial photoreduction of the enzyme. We have quantitated the amount of laser-induced photoreduction in these RR spectra by comparison with the spectra of mixed-valence derivatives of the enzyme and find that these 1620-cm-1 features are unreliable indicators of photoreduction. The spectra of the fast- and slow-reacting species in H2O and D2O have been compared. The fast-reacting form exhibits a 4-cm-1 shift, from 223 to 219 cm-1, upon transferring to D2O in a peak which we assign as the cytochrome a3 Fe(III)-N(His-Im) stretch. There is a parallel shift in the feature at 1651 cm-1 due to the C = O stretch of the formyl group of cytochrome a. These deuterium shifts are not observed in the slow form.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)