Electron relaxation and solvent accessibility of the metal site in wild-type and mutated azurins as determined from nuclear magnetic relaxation dispersion experiments

The interaction of water molecules with copper in wild-type azurin and different site-directed mutants of the coordinated residues is studied by nuclear magnetic relaxation dispersion. Different degrees of solvent accessibility are found. The low relaxivity of wild-type azurin agrees with a solvent-protected copper site in solution, the closest water being found at a distance of more than 5 Å from the copper. This low relaxivity contrasts with the relatively large relaxivity of the His46Gly and His117Gly azurin mutants, which shows clear evidence of copper-coordinated water. The data on the latter mutants are best analyzed in terms of one and two water molecules coordinated to the copper in His46Gly and His117Gly, respectively. The Met121His azurin mutant shows an intermediate behavior. The data are analyzed in terms of an increased solvent accessibility with respect to the wild-type azurin, resulting in semi-coordination of water at low pH. These different modes of coordination lead to different geometries, ranging from the trigonal type 1 site of wild-type azurin to the tetragonal type 2 copper sites of the His117Gly and His46Gly azurin mutants through a so-called type 1.5 site of the Met121His mutant. A correlation is found between the relaxation time (ts) of the unpaired electron of copper(II) and the geometry of the metal site: as the tetragonal character decreases the relaxation becomes significantly faster. ts values of ^1 ns are found for the tetrahedrally distorted type 1 and type 1.5 sites and of 5–15 ns for the tetragonal type 2 sites.