Complex III of Electron Transport Chain
From Proteopedia
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Be aware that the structure in the first applet is large and significant time is required for loading the structure! The other applets load much faster.
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Introduction
Complex III of the electron transport chain contains as many as 11 subunits per monomer. The structure shown to the right has 9. (The 'default scene' green link available in the Jmol applet shows the dimer structure along with Heavy Chain (Vh) Of Fv-Fragment, Light Chain (Vl) Of Fv-Fragment and Cytochrome C, Iso-1 all of which are a part of 1KYO.PDB. The link to OCA in the green box below contains additional information on the complete complex and the individual peptide components.) of the complex within the inner mitochondrial membrane with labels. reveals that one of the peptides of each subunit invades the space of the other subunit. of each monomeric unit have a direct role in the passage of electrons in the respiratory chain. The subunits that are colored are active in the electron transport chain. The grey peptides have other catalytic activities and functions, and the interior spaces which are created by the positions of the other subunits have a role in the movement of the substrates from one active site to another active site within the complex. The two subunits of cytochrome b (colored green) for the most part are buried in the complex and have minimal exposure to the intermembrane space and matrix. Cytochrome c1 subunits are positioned on top of cytochrome b and their outer surfaces are exposed to the intermembrane space. They are held in place by helical tails that extend deep into the complex and membrane. The Rieske subunits are Fe/S proteins with three domains: membrane domain (long helical segment that extends into the membrane), head domain which contains the Fe/S center and hinge domain (short segment between the other two).
Structure of three active components
Each cytochrome b contains (displayed as spacefill and colored cpk). Identify each of the hemes by toggling off the spin and hovering the curser over an atom of the heme. Hem 501 and Hem 502 are in one cytochrome b, and Hem 521 and Hem 522 are in the other one. The two hemes in each cytochrome b are in different environments and therefore have different properties, e.g. reduction potential. Hemes 501 & 521 have a lower potential than the other two and are called bL for low potential, and the other two are called bH for high potential. Each of the cytochrome b's have two binding sites for substrate. Ubiquinol and the inhibitor stigmatellin bind at one of these sites, QP, (Stigmatellin is shown in the applet below.[1]), and the site is adjacent to the bL heme (). The other site, QN, binds ubiquinone, and this site is outlined by which is located adjacent to the bH heme. In this view you are looking into the lit pocket in which the ubiquinone binds. You can rotate the structure and observe the ubiquinone binding pocket in the other subunit.
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is in the head of each Rieske protein. Each of the Fe/S centers is complexed with . As a result of bending at the (colored cyan) the head can be in one of three possible positions. Here the Fe/S head is in the in which a His of the Fe/S/His complex is in contact with the ubiquinol (actually stigmatellin in this model) bound at the QP site of cyto b. Wider view of . Notice that the His of the Risieke head is in contact with stigmatellin in the QP site and the stigmatellin is positioned on a straight line between the two hemes in the cyto c1 subunits. The is shown here with a PDB file[2] that does not have stigmatellin bound at QP, so the surface of the binding sites is shown in orange and the black arrow is pointing to the QP pocket. This pocket is on a straight line between the hemes of cyto c1, as in the view showing the cyto b position, but the Fe/S center is removed from the QP binding pocket and is in a position intermediate between the cyto b and cyto c1 positions. In the , the third position, the second His of the Fe/S is in contact with the cyto c1 heme through a hydrogen bond to a carboxylate oxygen of the heme. Black arrow indicates the direction of movement from Int position to the Cyto c1 position, and the orange arrow indicates the direction of movement from the Int position to the Cyto b position.
Q Cycle
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The UQ • -, the of the semiquinone, which was formed at Qp as described above and is shown here as stigmatellin is oxidized to the full UQ when it to heme bL. The is then passed from the Fe of heme bL to the Fe of Heme bH, and with Heme bH being next to UQ bound at the Qn site (Binding site is shown as a .), the is passed to UQ. With only one electron being passed in this series of reaction the UQ is reduced to UQ • -, and becomes UQH • when it accepts a which comes from the matrix. The end products of the first half of the Q cycle are an ubiquinol oxidized to ubiquinone at the Qp site, a reduced cyt c and an ubiquinone reduced to semi-ubiquinone at the Qn site.
The second half of the Q cycle is different form the first half in that at the Qn site at the end of the cycle a semi-ubiquinone is reduced to ubiquinol so that during a complete cycle at the Qn site an ubiquinone is reduced to ubiquinol.
SUMMARY:
2 ubiquinols oxidized at the Qp
2 cytochrome c's reduced
1 ubiquinone reduced to ubiquinol
4 hydrogen ions moved from matrix to intermenbrane space
View Interior of Q Binding Sites
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Footnotes
- ↑ The structure shown in the second applet was produced by modifying 1KYO.pdb. The Jmol command 'write file' was used to make a PDB file that contained only the 6 active subunits and cytochrome c (chains c,d,e,n,o,p,w) and the cofactors of those peptides.
- ↑ S.IWATA, J.W.LEE,K.OKADA,J.K.LEE, M.IWATA, B.RASMUSSEN, T.A.LINK, S.RAMASWAMY, B.K.JAP, COMPLETE STRUCTURE OF THE 11-SUBUNIT OVINE MITOCHONDRIAL CYTOCHROME BC1 COMPLEX, SCIENCE, 281, 64, 1998. 1BGY.PDB was modified to contain only the six active subunits (chains c, d, e, o, p, q)and their cofactors.
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Karl Oberholser, Eran Hodis, Michal Harel, Alexander Berchansky, Jaime Prilusky