Structural Insights and the Surprisingly Low Mechanical Stability of the Au鈥揝 Bond in the Gold-Specific Protein GolB

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• 作者：Wei Wei ; Yang Sun ; Mingli Zhu ; Xiangzhi Liu ; Peiqing Sun ; Feng Wang ; Qiu Gui ; Wuyi Meng ; Yi Cao ; Jing Zhao
• 刊名：Journal of the American Chemical Society
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：December 16, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：137
• 期：49
• 页码：15358-15361
• 全文大小：314K
• ISSN：1520-5126

文摘

The coordination bond between gold and sulfur (Au鈥揝) has been widely studied and utilized in many fields. However, detailed investigations on the basic nature of this bond are still lacking. A gold-specific binding protein, GolB, was recently identified, providing a unique opportunity for the study of the Au鈥揝 bond at the molecular level. We probed the mechanical strength of the gold鈥搒ulfur bond in GolB using single-molecule force spectroscopy. We measured the rupture force of the Au鈥揝 bond to be 165 pN, much lower than Au鈥揝 bonds measured on different gold surfaces (鈭?000 pN). We further solved the structures of apo-GolB and Au(I)鈥揋olB complex using X-ray crystallography. These structures showed that the average Au鈥揝 bond length in GolB is much longer than the reported average value of Au鈥揝 bonds. Our results highlight the dramatic influence of the unique biological environment on the stability and strength of metal coordination bonds in proteins.