Structural and Functional Differentiation of Three Groups of Tyrosine Residues by Acetylation of N-Acetylimidazole in Manganese Stabilizing Protein

Abstract

To study its contribution to the assembly of the green plant manganese stabilizing protein (MSP) into photosystem II (PSII), tyrosine residues were specifically acetylated using N-acetylimidazole (NAI). In soluble MSP, three groups of Tyr residues could be differentiated by NAI acetylation: approximately 5 (actually approximately 5.2) Tyr residues could be easily acetylated (superficial), 1-2 Tyr residues could be acetylated when the NAI concentration was sufficiently high (superficially buried), and 1-2 Tyr residues could only be acetylated in the presence of the denaturant, urea (deeply buried). Acetylation of the 5.2 Tyr residues did not affect the reconstitution or oxygen-evolving activities of the MSP, and far-UV circular dichroism (CD) analysis showed that the altered MSP retained most of its native secondary structure. These results suggested that the 5.2 Tyr residues are not absolutely essential to the function of MSP. However, further modification of the 1-2 superficially buried Tyr residues (for a total acetylation of approximately 6.4 Tyr residues) completely abrogated the MSP rebinding and oxygen evolution activities. Finally, at least one tyrosine residue was inaccessible to NAI until MSP was completely unfolded by 8 M urea. Deacetylation of MSP with 6.4 or 8 acetylated Tyr residues with hydroxylamine restored most of the rebinding and oxygen-evolving activities. A prominent red shift in fluorescence spectra of MSP (excited at 280 or 295 nm) was observed after modification of 6.4 Tyr residues, and a further shift could be found after all 8 Tyr residues were modified, indicating a great loss of native secondary structure. Far-UV CD revealed that MSP was mostly unfolded when 6.4 Tyr residues were modified and completely unfolded when all 8 Tyr residues were modified. Fluorescence and far-UV CD studies revealed that loss of MSP rebinding to PSII membranes following NAI modification correlated well with conformational changes in MSP. Together, these results indicate that different tyrosine residues have different contributions to the binding and assembly of MSP into PSII.