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High Frequency Dynamics in Hemoglobin Measured by Magnetic Relaxation Dispersion

Chemistry Department, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to Robert G. Bryant, Chemistry Department, University of Virginia, McCormick Road, PO Box 400319, Charlottesville, VA. Tel.: 434-924-1494; E-mail:rgb4g{at}virginia.edu.

The magnetic relaxation dispersion profiles for formate, acetate, and water protons are reported for aqueous solutions of hemoglobin singly and doubly labeled with a nitroxide and mercury(II) ion at cysteines at ß-93. Using two spin labels, one nuclear and one electron spin, a long intramolecular vector is defined between the two ß-93 positions in the protein. The paramagnetic contributions to the observed ¹H spin-lattice relaxation rate constant are isolated from the magnetic relaxation dispersion profiles obtained on a dual-magnet apparatus that provides spectral density functions characterizing fluctuations sensed by intermoment dipolar interactions in the time range from the tens of microseconds to 1 ps. Both formate and acetate ions are found to bind specifically within 5 Å of the ß-93 spin-label position and the relaxation dispersion has inflection points corresponding to correlation times of 30 ps and 4 ns for both ions. The 4-ns motion is identified with exchange of the anions from the site, whereas the 30-ps correlation time is identified with relative motions of the spin label and the bound anion in the protein environment close to ß-93. The magnetic field dependence of the paramagnetic contributions in both cases is well described by a simple Lorentzian spectral density function; no peaks in the spectral density function are observed. Therefore, the high frequency motions of the protein monitored by the intramolecular vector defined by the electron and nuclear spin are well characterized by a stationary random function of time. Attempts to examine long vector fluctuations by employing electron spin and nuclear spin double-labeling techniques did not yield unambiguous characterization of the high frequency motions of the vector between ß-93 positions on different chains.

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