Site and mechanism of covalent binding of 4-dimethylaminophenol to human hemoglobin, and its implications to the functional properties.

4-Dimethylaminophenol, after i.v. injection, rapidly forms ferrihemoglobin and has been successfully used in the treatment of cyanide poisoning. The catalytic ferrihemoglobin formation is terminated by thioether formation of oxidized 4-dimethylaminophenol with reduced glutathione or cysteine 93 beta of hemoglobin. Hereby the physiological functions of human hemoglobin are markedly altered. After binding of two molecules of 4-dimethylaminophenol to tetrameric hemoglobin, the rate of autoxidation is increased about 6-fold. The oxygen affinity is 10 times higher than normal, the Hill coefficient is diminished nearly to unity, and the Bohr effect is reduced by about 50%. The physiologically important allosteric regulation of the oxygen affinity by 2,3-diphosphoglycerate is abolished, and the binding of 2,3-diphosphoglycerate to deoxyhemoglobin no longer functions. By molecular sieving, two alkylated hemoglobins were separated: a hemoglobin fraction with an unchanged low tetramer dimer dissociation, normal electronic spectra, and normal digestibility by carboxypeptidase A; and a second fraction with a high degree of dissociation, altered electronic spectra, and impaired digestibility. A tryptic peptide was isolated containing cysteine 93 beta and histidine 146 beta cross-linked by an arylic compound missing the dimethylamine label. The following reaction mechanism is concluded: Oxy-hemoglobin catalyzes the oxidation of 4-dimethylaminophenol, and the oxidation product, presumably N,N-dimethylquinonimine, is bound covalently to cysteine 93 beta by a thioether linkage. This adduct is unstable and autoxidizes further with the liberation of dimethylamine. The resulting quinoid thioether electrophilically attacks the COOH-terminal histidine of the beta-chain, thereby forming an intramolecular cross-link. By this latter reaction, hemoglobin lacks allosteric transition upon ligation and is obviously frozen in its quaternary R-state.