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. 1977 Sep;74(9):3662–3666. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.9.3662

Coupling in cytochrome c oxidase

R J Kessler 1, G A Blondin 1, H Vande Zande 1, R A Haworth 1, D E Green 1
PMCID: PMC431680  PMID: 198794

Abstract

Cytochrome c oxidase (ferrocytochrome c: oxygen oxidoreductase; EC 1.9.3.1) can be resolved into an electron transfer complex (ETC) and an ionophore transfer complex (ITC). Coupling requires an interaction between the moving electron in the ETC and a moving, positively charged ionophore-cation adduct in the ITC. The duplex character of cytochrome oxidase facilitates this interaction. The ITC mediates cyclical cation transport. It can be replaced as the coupling partner by the combination of valinomycin and nigericin in the presence of K+ when cytochrome oxidase is incorporated into liposomes containing acidic phospholipids or by the combination of lipid cytochrome c and bile acids in an ITC-resolved preparation of the ETC. Respiratory control can be induced by incorporating cytochrome oxidase into vesicles of unfractionated whole mitochondrial lipid. The activity of the ITC is suppressed by such incorporation and this suppression leads to the emergence of respiratory control. The ionophoroproteins of the ITC can be extracted into organic solvents; some 50% of the total protein of cytochrome oxidase is extractable. The release of free ionophore is achieved by tryptic digestion of the ionophoroprotein. Preliminary to this release the ionophoroprotein is degraded to an ionophoropeptide. Electrogenic ionophores, as well as uncoupler, are liberated by such proteolysis. The ITC contains a set of ionophoroproteins imbedded in a matrix of phospholipid.

Keywords: ionophore transfer complex, electrogenic intrinsic ionophores, uncoupling combinations, respiratory control, electron-positive charge coupling

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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