Structural consequences of heme removal: molecular dynamics simulations of rat and bovine apocytochrome b5.

Molecular dynamics simulations of rat and bovine apocytochrome b5 were performed to investigate the structural and dynamical consequences of heme removal. A crystal structure is available for the bovine holoprotein, while experimental studies of apocytochrome b5 have focused on the rat protein. The rat and bovine proteins are 93% homologous by sequence, and the sequence differences (six residues) appear to have no effect on the structure of the native holoprotein, as seen by the correlation of a bovine simulation with rat holocytochrome b5 experimental data (Storch & Daggett, 1995). There was a marked effect, however, on the structure and dynamics of the apo form. The bovine apocytochrome b5 simulation displayed subtle inconsistencies when compared to the experimental results on the rat apoprotein. Therefore, the rat protein was constructed from the bovine crystal structure coordinates. The MD simulation of the rat apoprotein displayed greater deviations from the crystal structure, yet it was in much closer agreement to the experimental data for the apoprotein. Additionally, the six variant residues fall in the regions where the bovine protein deviated from experiment. The two hydrophobic cores of the rat protein behaved very differently. Core 2 was well maintained, retained native-like structure, and is in good agreement with NMR data (Moore & Lecomte, 1990). Conversely, core 1, which is normally constrained by the prosthetic heme group, exhibited conformational heterogeneity, increased mobility, and some loss of secondary structure. Thus, the model of rat apocytochrome b5 complements past studies by providing structural information about core 1 that has proved difficult to obtain by experiment. The bovine simulation serves as a prediction, since little to no experimental data exist for this form of the apoprotein.