The interdomain disulfide bond present in the C-lobe
of all the transferrins was postulated to restrict the
domain movement resulting in the slow rate of iron uptake
and release. In the present study, the conformational stability
and iron binding properties of a derivative of the isolated
C-lobe of ovotransferrin in which the interdomain disulfide
bond, Cys478-Cys671 was selectively reduced and alkylated
with iodoacetamide were compared with the disulfide intact
form at the endosomal pH of 5.6. Pyrophosphate and chloride
mediated iron release kinetics showed no difference between
the disulfide-intact and disulfide-reduced/alkylated forms;
the two protein forms yielded similar observed rate constants
showing an apparent hyperbolic dependency for anion concentrations.
The conformational stability evaluated by unfolding and
refolding experiments was greater for the disulfide-intact
form than for the disulfide-reduced/alkylated form: the
ΔGDH2O
values at 30 °C obtained by using urea were 9.0 ±
0.8 and 6.0 ± 0.4 kJ/mol for the former and latter protein
forms, respectively, and the corresponding values obtained by
using guanidine hydrochloride were 6.2 ± 0.9 and
4.3 ± 0.5 kJ/mol. The dissociation constant of
iron (kd) was almost the same
for the two protein forms, and it varied only subtly with
urea concentrations but increased markedly with GdnHCl
concentrations. The nonidentical values of
ΔGDH2O
and kd for urea and GdnHCl can be
attributed to the ionic nature of the later denaturant, in which
chloride anion may influence the structure and iron uptake-release
properties of the ovotransferrin C-lobe. Taken together, we conclude
that the interdomain disulfide bond has no effect on the iron uptake
and release function but significantly decreases the conformational
stability in the C-lobe.