Optical and EPR characterization of different species of active and inactive aconitase.

It has been shown by spectroscopic (Kent, T. A., Dreyer, J-L., Kennedy, M.C., Huynh, B.H., Emptage, M.H., Beinert, H., and Münck, E. (1982) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 79, 1096-1100) and chemical (Kennedy, M.C., Emptage, M.H., Dryer, J-L., and Beinert, H. (1983) J. Biol. Chem. 258, 11098-11105) methods that interconversion of 3Fe-4S and 4Fe-4S clusters underlies activation and inactivation of aconitase. Since Fe-S clusters can assume different oxidation states, a number of different species of the enzyme can be expected to exist. Observations on activation-inactivation, as well as light absorption and EPR spectra, can be interpreted in terms of four species: 3Fe-4S1+, the oxidized inactive enzyme as obtained on aerobic preparation from mitochondria; 3Fe-4S0, the reduced inactive form as obtained on reduction in the presence of EDTA; 4Fe-4S2+, the oxidized active form as obtained on reductive activation; and 4Fe-4S1+, the reduced active form prepared by photoreduction of active aconitase. The light absorption spectra of each species are presented. Oxidized inactive aconitase shows EPR spectra typical of oxidized 3Fe clusters (g = 2.01), and reduced active enzyme shows spectra typical of reduced ferredoxins (g1,2,3 = 2.06, 1.93, 1.86). The EPR spectrum of the latter is drastically changed (g1,2,3 = 2.04, 1.85, 1.78) on addition of substrate. The active enzyme can be quantitatively converted to inactive enzyme by titration with ferricyanide in the presence of substrate. The correlation of EPR and optical spectra with enzymatic activity observed during titration demonstrates further that active aconitase requires an intact 4Fe-4S cluster. A model of aconitase incorporating the four cluster species is presented, and explanations for some previous conflicting data concerning aconitase are offered.