Glutamate 107 in subunit I of cytochrome bd from Escherichia coli is part of a transmembrane intraprotein pathway conducting protons from cytoplasm to the heme b₅₉₅/heme d active site.
Borisov VB, Belevich I, Bloch DA, Mogi T, Verkhovsky MI.

Cytochrome bd is a terminal quinol:O2 oxidoreductase of the respiratory chain of Escherichia coli. The enzyme generates protonmotive force without proton pumping and contains three hemes, b₅₅₈, b₅₉₅, and d. A highly conserved glutamic acid residue of transmembrane helix III in subunit I, E107, was suggested to be part of a transmembrane pathway delivering protons from the cytoplasm to the oxygen-reducing site. When E107 is replaced with leucine, the hemes are retained but the ubiquinol-1-oxidase activity is lost. We compared wild-type and E107L mutant enzymes during single turnover using absorption and electrometric techniques with a microsecond time resolution. Both wild-type and E107L mutant cytochromes bd in the fully reduced state bind O₂ rapidly, but the formation of the oxoferryl species in the mutant is dramatically retarded as compared to the wild type. Intraprotein electron redistribution induced by the photolysis of CO bound to ferrous heme d in the one-electron-reduced wild-type enzyme is coupled to the membrane potential generation, whereas the mutant cytochrome bd shows no such potential generation. The E107L mutation also causes decrease of midpoint redox potentials of hemes b₅₉₅ and d by 25?30 mV and heme b₅₅₈ by ~70 mV. There are two protonatable groups redox-linked to hemes b₅₉₅ and d in the active site, one of which has been recently identified as E445, whereas the second group remains unknown. Here we propose that E107 is either the second group or a key residue of a proposed proton delivery pathway leading from the cytoplasm toward this second group.

PMID: 18597483 [PubMed]