Probing the intrinsic electronic structure of the cubane [4Fe-4S] cluster: Nature's favorite cluster for electron transfer and storage

The cubane [4Fe-4S] is the most common multinuclear metal center in nature for electron transfer and storage. Using electrospray, we produced a series of gaseous doubly charged cubane-type complexes, [Fe4S4L4](2-) (L = -SC2H5, -SH, -Cl, -Br, -l) and the Se-analogues [Fe4Se4L4](2-) (L = -SC2H5, -Cl), and probed their electronic structures with photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional calculations. The photoelectron spectral features are similar among all the seven species investigated, revealing a weak threshold feature due to the minority spins on the Fe centers and confirming the low-spin two-layer model for the [4Fe-4S](2+) core and its "inverted level scheme". The measured adiabatic detachment energies, which are sensitive to the terminal ligand substitution, provide the intrinsic oxidation potentials of the [Fe4S4L4](2-) complexes. The calculations revealed a simple correlation between the electron donor property of the terminal thiolate as well as the bridging sulfide with the variation of the intrinsic redox potentials. Our data provide intrinsic electronic structure information of the [4Fe-4S] cluster and the molecular basis for understanding the protein and solvent effects on the redox properties of the [4Fe-4S] active sites.