Nanosecond dynamics of horse heart apocytochrome c in aqueous solution as studied by time-resolved fluorescence of the single tryptophan residue (Trp-59).

The time-resolved fluorescence emission characteristics of the single tryptophan residue (Trp-59) of horse heart apocytochrome c--the precursor of the intramitochondrial cytochrome c--were studied in aqueous solution. The total fluorescence intensity decay measured over the whole emission spectrum was analyzed as a sum of three or four exponentials by the nonlinear least-squares method, the last model always providing a slight but significant decrease in the chi 2 values. Maximum entropy analysis, recently developed for time-resolved fluorometry (Livesey et al., 1987; Livesey & Brochon, 1987), strongly suggests the existence of a distribution including at least four separate classes of lifetimes. The center values were around 0.1-0.2, 1, 3, and 5 ns, in agreement with the lifetime values obtained by nonlinear least-squares regression analysis. As a function of the emission wavelength, these values remained constant within the experimental error, whereas a redistribution of the fractional amplitudes was observed: the contributions of the short components increased in the blue edge region of the emission spectrum. Temperature increase led essentially to a redistribution of the fractional amplitudes, affecting mostly that of the 5-ns component, which almost totally disappeared at high temperature (35-40 degrees C). The lifetime values were not significantly affected except for the 3-ns component, which decreased by about 15% in the temperature range studied. Such observations strongly suggest that the protein exists under different conformational substates in thermal equilibrium. Time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy measurements evidenced the existence of fast internal rotation of the Trp residue. An average maximum restricted angle of rotation of around 55 degrees was calculated. A second internal motion, slower by 1 order of magnitude, corresponding likely to a local motion of the peptide chain involving the Trp-59 residue, was detected on the anisotropy decay curve. Finally, the longest correlation time (5 ns) should correspond to the average rotation of the overall protein. Its value doubled as a function of the protein concentration, revealing an association process leading most likely to a dimer in the concentration range studied (2-139 microM). The flexibility of the peptide chain was more restrained in the associated than in the monomeric form, but the fast internal rotation of the Trp residue was not.