Preparation and properties of immobilized rubredoxin

Rubredoxin, one of the three protein components of the epoxidation/hydroxylation system of Pseudomonas oleovorans was immobilized by attachment to CNBr-activated agarose (Sepharose 4B). Since this represents the first reported example of the preparation of a water-insoluble derivative of an enzyme of this type, the electron transfer and physical properties of the conjugate were examined in order to allow comparison with those of the soluble enzyme. Immobilized rubredoxin exhibits all of the major spectral properties of the soluble enzyme above 300 nm, but some distortion in the 280 nm abosrbance band was observed. The immobilized enzyme accepts electrons from dithionite or form NADPH in the presence of spinach ferredoxin-NADP reductase, and upon reduction the visible absorbance is bleached. Immobilized rubredoxin mediates the reduction of cytochrome c in the presence of NADPH and spinach reductase, although it is less efficient in this role than soluble rubredoxin. The oxidation-reduction potential of immobilized rubredoxin was determined and found to be similar to that of the soluble enzyme. In the presence of 2.5 m guanidine HCL, the immobilized enzyme is considerably more stable than soluble rubredoxin toward denaturation. After anaerobic reduction, iron was readily removed from immobilized rubredoxin by washing in 0.5 m Tris base, PH 9.5 containing 0.07 M mercaptoethanol, and the resulting immobilized apoenzyme could then be reconstituted to give back a conjugate with the original iron content, as judged from its absorbance at 497 NM. Reptition of the entire reduction-dissociation-reconstitution cycle gave the same results as were obtained after the initial reconstitution.