Construction and expression of a flavocytochrome b5 chimera

A gene has been constructed coding for a chimeric flavocytochrome b5 protein that comprises the soluble domain of rat hepatic cytochrome b5 as the NH2-terminal portion of the chimera and the flavin-containing domain of spinach assimilatory NADH:nitrate reductase as the C terminus. The chimeric protein has been expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity using a combination of ammonium sulfate precipitation, affinity chromatography on 5'-ADP-agarose, anion-exchange chromatography, and fast protein liquid chromatography gel filtration with an estimated molecular mass of 43 kDa from polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Visible and fluorescence spectroscopy indicated the purified protein contained both a b-type cytochrome and FAD prosthetic groups. The chimeric hemoflavoprotein immunologically cross-reacted with both anti-rat cytochrome b5 and anti-spinach nitrate reductase polyclonal antibodies, indicating the conservation of antigenic determinants from both native domains. NH2-terminal and internal amino acid sequencing of the native and CNBr-digested protein confirmed the presence of peptides derived from both the heme- and flavin-binding portions of the sequence which were identical to the deduced amino acid sequence. The chimera exhibited both NADH: ferricyanide reductase and NADH:cytochrome c reductase activities with Vmax values of 88 and 37 mumol of NADH consumed per min/nmol of heme (mu = 0.05 and pH 7.0) and Km values of 2.1, 32, and 1.4 microM for NADH, ferricyanide, and cytochrome c, respectively. This work represents the first successful bacterial expression of a mammalian-plant chimeric metalloflavoprotein. The chimera exhibited properties extremely similar to those of the native cytochrome b5 heme and spinach nitrate reductase FAD components.