Reaction of variant sperm-whale myoglobins with hydrogen peroxide: the effects of mutating a histidine residue in the haem distal pocket

The reaction of hydrogen peroxide with a number of variants of sperm-whale myoglobin in which the distal pocket histidine residue (His(64)) had been mutated was studied with a combination of stopped-flow spectroscopy and freeze-quench EPR. The rate of the initial bimolecular reaction with hydrogen peroxide in all the proteins studied was found to depend on the polarity of the amino acid side chain at position 64. In wild-type myoglobin there were no significant optical changes subsequent to this reaction, suggesting the rapid formation of the well-characterized oxyferryl species. This conclusion was supported by freeze-quench EPR data, which were consistent with the pattern of reactivity previously reported [King and Winfield (1963) J. Biol. Chem. 238, 1520-1528]. In those myoglobins bearing a mutation at position 64, the initial bimolecular reaction with hydrogen peroxide yielded an intermediate species that subsequently decayed via a second hydrogen peroxide-dependent step leading to modification or destruction of the haem, In the mutant His(64) --> Gln the calculated electronic absorption spectrum of the intermediate was not that of an oxyferryl species but seemed to be that of a low-spin ferric haem, Freeze-quench EPR studies of this mutant and the apolar mutant (His(64) --> Val) revealed the accumulation of a novel intermediate after the first hydrogen peroxide-dependent reaction. The unusual EPR characteristics of this species are provisionally assigned to a low-spin ferric haem with bound peroxide as the distal ligand. These results are interpreted in terms of a reaction scheme in which the polarity of the distal pocket governs the rate of binding of hydrogen peroxide to the haem iron and the residue at position 64 governs both the rate of heterolytic oxygen scission and the stability of the oxyferryl product.