Abstract

Nuclear magnetic quadrupole relaxation appears to be a general method for studying the binding of anions to proteins. This is shown by the increase in transverse quadrupole relaxation rate of 35Cl- and 81Br- in the presence of horse liver alcohol dehydrogenase, lysozyme, trypsin, alpha-chymotrypsin, human carbonic anhydrase, fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase and human serum albumin. Of the many possible binding sites at the surface of a protein (e.g. positively charged amino acid side-chains) only a few account for the main part of the relaxation enhancement. This is shown by the decrease in 35Cl- and 81Br- relaxation rate on addition of functional ligands. Large, kinetically inert, complex anions like Pt(CN)2-4 and Au(CN)-2 are found to act as strong competitors towards halogen ions for the high-affinity anion binding sites of a number of proteins. Titrations with complex anions following the 35Cl- or 81Br- relaxation rates are found to be helpful in attempts to elucidate binding mechanisms. Especially, the complex anions may be useful probes for the discrimination between general and metallic anion binding sites in proteins and they also permit correlation of information from X-ray investigations of crystals with that from physical measurements in solution. From the change in halide ion quadrupole relaxation rate on addition of strongly binding ligands the quadrupole coupling constants of the high affinity Cl- and Br- binding sites are estimated using certain assumptions. It is found that for several proteins, comprising the metal-free proteins but also alcohol dehydrogenase and Escherichia coli alkaline phosphatase, the 35Cl quadrupole coupling constants have approximately the same values. For some other metallo-proteins like carbonic anhydrase and a zinc - serum-albumin complex considerably greater quadrupole coupling constants were obtained. The estimated quadrupole coupling constants are used as a basis for a discussion of the interactions involved in anion-protein interactions.