Thermodynamic aspects of the CO-binding reaction to cytochrome P-450cam. Relevance with their biological significance and structure.

The CO-binding kinetics of cytochrome P-450cam(+) and P-450cam(-) have been measured in the millisecond time domain using a flash photolysis method. We have determined the reaction coordinates for free energy, enthalpy and entropy from the temperature dependence of the overall rate constants of the bimolecular forward (on) and backward (off) reactions. Comparing the thermodynamic profiles of P-450cam with that of myoglobin (Mb) reported so far, the enthalpy and the entropy coordinates exhibit the following remarkable characteristics. The CO-binding equilibrium: The stability of the CO-complex is perfectly entropy-driven for P-450cam, while enthalpy-driven for Mb. This entropy-driven feature for P-450cam is enhanced by the dissociating d-camphor. The on and off activation processes: The on and off reactions for P-450cam are dominantly controlled by the enthalpy and entropy terms, respectively, while those for Mb are rather the reverse of the case of P-450cam. The dissociation of d-camphor has a significant effect on the on reaction but no effect on the off reaction. Analyzing these thermodynamic features on the basis of the physical chemistry in the solution reaction, it was found that these characteristic profiles arise from the difference in the global structural change between the proteins. Namely, during the equilibrium process of the CO binding, this structural change is accompanied by a larger increase in the degree of freedom in P-450cam than in Mb. We discussed the correlations between the structural changes and their biological significance.