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A Combined Experimental and Quantum Chemical Study on the Putative Protonophoric Activity of Thiocyanate

Peter Schönfeld ^*, Luis Montero  and Jürgen Fabian 

^* Institut für Biochemie, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, D-39120 Magdeburg, Germany; Laboratorio de Química Computacional y Teórica, Facultad de Química, Universidad de La Habana, Havana 10400, Cuba; and Institut für Organische Chemie, Technische Universität Dresden, D-01062 Dresden, Germany

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to Peter Schönfeld, Tel.: 49-391-67-15892; Fax: 49-391-67-15898; E-mail: peter.schoenfeld{at}medizin.uni-magdeburg.de.

Inhibition of gastric acid secretion by thiocyanate is explained by a protonophoric mechanism assuming that thiocyanate induces a H⁺ back flux from the acidic gastric lumen into the parietal cells of gastric mucosa. Protonophoric activity of thiocyanate was examined by swelling measurements using rat liver mitochondria and theoretically by quantum chemical methods. Mitochondria suspended in K-thiocyanate medium plus nigericin (an H/K-exchanger) swelled when the medium pH was acidic, indicating that SCN^– initiates a transfer of H⁺ across the inner membrane. To rationalize the protonophoric activity of thiocyanate, we considered the dehydration of SCN^– to be critical for transmembranal H⁺ transfer. For modeling this process, various hydrate clusters of SCN^– and Cl^– were generated and optimized by density functional theory (DFT) at the B3-LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level. The cluster hydration energy was lower for SCN^– than for Cl^–. The total Gibbs free energies of hydration of the ions were estimated by a hybrid supermolecule-continuum approach based on DFT. The calculated hydration energies also led to the conclusion that SCN^– is less efficiently solvated than Cl^–. Due to the easier removal of the hydration shell of SCN^– relative to Cl^–, SCN^– is favored in going across the membrane, giving rise to the protonophoric activity.