The MXAN procedure:: a new method for analysing the XANES spectra of metalloproteins to obtain structural quantitative information

The first quantitative analyses are reported of the Fe K-edge polarized X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) of a single crystal of the iron protein carbonmonoxy-myoglobin (MbCO) and of its cryogenic photoproduct Mb*CO. The CO-Fe-heme local structure has been determined using a novel fitting procedure, named MXAN, which is able to fit the XANES part (from the edge to about 200 eV) of experimental X-ray absorption data. This method is based on the comparison between the experimental spectrum and several theoretical spectra that are generated by changing the relevant geometrical parameters of the site around the absorbing atom. The theoretical spectra are derived in the framework of the full multiple-scattering approach. The MXAN procedure is able to recover information about the symmetry and atomic distances, and the solution is found to be independent of the starting conditions. The extracted local structure of Mb*CO includes an Fe-CO distance of 3.08 (7) Angstrom, with a tilting angle between the heme normal and the Fe-C vector of 37 (7)degrees and a bending angle between the Fe-C vector and the C-O bond of 31 (5)degrees.