Factors defining the effects of macromolecular crowding on dynamics and thermodynamic stability of heme proteins in-vitro.

The role of crowding agents on structure and activities of heme proteins has been established. Analysis of kinetic and thermodynamic parameters measured for CO-dissociation reaction of natively-folded carbonmonoxycytochrome c (NCO) and carbonmonoxymyoglobin (MbCO) at different [GdnHCl] or [Urea] in the presence of crowding agents (dextran 40, dextran 70 and ficoll 70) demonstrate that (i) at low denaturant concentrations, crowder presence enhances the denaturant-mediated restricted dynamics of NCO and MbCO, and (ii) at higher denaturant concentrations, large scale unfolding-fluctuations dominate the dynamics and inclusion of crowder counteracts the structural-fluctuations causing the unfolding of proteins. Thermodynamic analysis of thermal and urea-unfolding curves of cytochrome c (Cyt c) and myoglobin (Mb) measured at different [GdnHCl] in presence of crowding agents reveals that crowder presence counterbalances and strengthens the destabilizing action of GdnHCl on stability of Cyt c and Mb, respectively. This study further demonstrates that the size, shape and concentration of crowding agent modulate the effect of crowder on denaturant-mediated dynamics and thermodynamic stability of heme proteins.