Efforts toward developing direct probes of protein dynamics

J Am Chem Soc. 2006 May 10;128(18):6028-9. doi: 10.1021/ja061328g.

Abstract

We report the first IR characterization of a single C-D bond within a protein, methyl-d1 Met80 of horse heart cytochrome c. A comparison was made to methyl-d1/d3 methionine as well as methyl-d3 Met80. We found that for methyl-d1 and the asymmetric stretches of methyl-d3, line widths/line shapes are dominated by inhomogeneous broadening, whereas the symmetric stretch of methyl-d3 has a significant homogeneous component. Vibrational energy relaxation calculations found that a significantly stronger Fermi resonance exists for the symmetric stretch than for the asymmetric stretches, thereby suggesting that a difference in intramolecular vibrational relaxation (IVR) causes the observed line width/line shape difference between the symmetric and asymmetric stretches.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cytochromes c / chemistry*
  • Deuterium
  • Horses
  • Methionine / chemistry*
  • Models, Molecular
  • Protein Conformation
  • Quantum Theory
  • Spectrophotometry, Infrared
  • Thermodynamics

Substances

  • Cytochromes c
  • Methionine
  • Deuterium