The mechanism of proton transfer between adjacent sites exposed to water

The surface of a protein, or a membrane, is spotted with a multitude of proton-binding sites, some of which are only a few angstroms apart. When a proton is released from one site, it propagates through the water by a random walk under the bias of the local electrostatic potential determined by the distribution of the charges on the protein. Some of the released protons disperse into the bulk, but during the first few nanoseconds, the released protons can be trapped by encounter with nearby acceptor sites. This process resembles a scenario which corresponds with the time-dependent Debye-Smoluchowski equation. In the present study, we investigated the mechanism of proton transfer between sites that are only a few angstroms apart, using as a model the proton exchange between sites on a small molecule, fluorescein, having two, spectrally distinguishable, proton-binding sites. The first site is the oxyanion on the chromophore ring structure. The second site is the carboxylate moiety on the benzene ring of the molecule. Through our experiments, we were able to reconstruct the state of protonation at each site and the velocity of proton transfer between them. The fluorescein was protonated by a few nanosecond long proton pulse under specific conditions that ensured that the dye molecules would be protonated only by a single proton. The dynamics of the protonation of the chromophore were measured under varying initial conditions (temperature, ionic strength, and different solvents (H(2)O or D(2)O)), and the velocity of the proton transfer between the two sites was extracted from the overall global analysis of the signals. The dynamics of the proton transfer between the two proton-binding sites of the fluorescein indicated that the efficiency of the site-to-site proton transfer is very sensitive to the presence of the screening electrolyte and has a very high kinetic isotope effect (KIE = 55). These two parameters clearly distinguish the mechanism from proton diffusion in bulk water. The activation energy of the reaction (E(a) = 11 kcal mol(-1)) is also significantly higher than the activation energy for proton dissociation in bulk water (E(a) approximately 2.5 kcal mol(-1)). These observations are discussed with respect to the effect of the solute on the water molecules located within the solvation layer.