Spin-dependent mechanism for diatomic ligand binding to heme

The nature of diatomic ligand recombination in heme proteins is elucidated by using a Landau-Zener model for the electronic coupling in the recombination rate constant. The model is developed by means of explicit potential energy surfaces calculated by using density functional theory (DFT). The interaction of all possible spin states of the three common diatomic ligands, CO, NO, and O2, and high-spin heme iron is compared. The electronic coupling, rebinding barrier, and Landau-Zener force terms can be obtained and used to demonstrate significant differences among the ligands. In particular the intermediate spin states of NO (S = 32) and O2 (S = 1) are shown to be bound states. Rapid recombination occurs from these bound states in agreement with experimental data. The slower phases of O2 recombination can be explained by the presence of two higher spin states, S = 2 and S = 3, which have a small and relatively large barrier to ligand recombination, respectively. By contrast, the intermediate spin state for CO is not a bound state, and the only recombination pathway for CO involves direct recombination from the S = 2 state. This process is significantly slower according to the Landau-Zener model. Quantitative estimates of the parameters used in the rate constants provide a complete description that explains rebinding rates that range from femtoseconds to milliseconds at ambient temperature.