Hydrogen Bonding to the Substrate Is Not Required for Rieske Iron-Sulfur Protein Docking to the Quinol Oxidation Site of Complex III.
Esser, L., Zhou, F., Zhou, Y., Xiao, Y., Tang, W.K., Yu, C.A., Qin, Z., Xia, D.(2016) J Biol Chem 291: 25019-25031
- PubMed: 27758861 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M116.744391
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
5KKZ, 5KLI, 5KLV - PubMed Abstract: 
Complex III or the cytochrome (cyt) bc 1 complex constitutes an integral part of the respiratory chain of most aerobic organisms and of the photosynthetic apparatus of anoxygenic purple bacteria. The function of cyt bc 1 is to couple the reaction of electron transfer from ubiquinol to cytochrome c to proton pumping across the membrane. Mechanistically, the electron transfer reaction requires docking of its Rieske iron-sulfur protein (ISP) subunit to the quinol oxidation site (Q P ) of the complex. Formation of an H-bond between the ISP and the bound substrate was proposed to mediate the docking. Here we show that the binding of oxazolidinedione-type inhibitors famoxadone, jg144, and fenamidone induces docking of the ISP to the Q P site in the absence of the H-bond formation both in mitochondrial and bacterial cyt bc 1 complexes, demonstrating that ISP docking is independent of the proposed direct ISP-inhibitor interaction. The binding of oxazolidinedione-type inhibitors to cyt bc 1 of different species reveals a toxophore that appears to interact optimally with residues in the Q P site. The effect of modifications or additions to the toxophore on the binding to cyt bc 1 from different species could not be predicted from structure-based sequence alignments, as demonstrated by the altered binding mode of famoxadone to bacterial cyt bc 1 .
Organizational Affiliation: 
From the Laboratory of Cell Biology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892.