Thermodynamic Characterization of the Interaction between the C-Terminal Domain of Extracellular Superoxide Dismutase and Heparin by Isothermal Titration Calorimetry

Extracellular superoxide dismutase (ECSOD) interacts with heparin through its C-terminal domain. In this study we used isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) to get detailed thermodynamic information about the interaction. We have shown that the interaction between ECSOD and intestinal mucosal heparin (M-w 6000-30000 Da) is exothermic and driven by enthalpy at physiological salt concentration. However, the contribution from entropy is favorable for binding or small isolated heparin fragments. By studying different size-defined heparin fragments, we also concluded that it hexasaccharide moiety is sufficient for strong binding to ECSOD. The binding involves proton transfer from the buffer to the ECSOD-heparin complex, and the results indicate that the number of ionic interactions made between ECSOD and heparin upon binding varies from three to five for heparin and an octasaccharide fragment, respectively. Surprisingly and despite the many charges found oil both the protein and the polysaccharide, our results indicate that the nonionic contribution to the binding is large. From the temperature dependence we have calculated the constant pressure heat capacity change (Delta C-p) of the interaction to -644 J K-1 mol(-1) and -306 J K-1 mol(-1) for heparin and all octasaccharide, respectively