Electrochemical study of an electron shuttle diheme protein: The cytochrome c₅₅₀ from T. thermophilus

Cytochrome c₅₅₀, a diheme protein from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus thermophilus, is involved in an alternative respiration pathway allowing the detoxification of sulfite ions. It transfers the two electrons released from the oxidation of sulfite in a sulfite:cytochrome c oxidoreductase (SOR) enzyme to heme/copper oxidases via the monoheme cytochrome c₅₅₂. It consists of two conformationally independent and structurally different domains (the C- and N-terminal) connected by a flexible linker. Both domains harbor one heme moiety. We report here the redox properties of the full-length protein and the individual C- and N-terminal fragments. We show by UV/Vis and EPR potentiometric titrations that the two fragments exhibit very similar potentials, despite their different environments. In the full-length protein, however, the N-terminal heme is easier to reduce than the C-terminal one, due to cooperative interactions. This finding is consistent with the kinetic measurements which showed that the N-terminal domain only accepts electrons from the SOR. Cytochrome c₅₅₂ is able to interact with its partners both through electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions as could be shown by measuring efficient electron transfer at gold electrodes modified with charged and hydrophobic groups, respectively. The coupling of electrochemistry with infrared spectroscopy allowed us to monitor the conformational changes induced by electron transfer to each heme separately and to both simultaneously.