Long distance electron transfer through the aqueous solution between redox partner proteins

Anna Lagunas, Alejandra Guerra-Castellano, Alba Nin-Hill, Irene Díaz-Moreno, Miguel A. De la Rosa, Josep Samitier, Carme Rovira and Pau Gorostiza ()
Additional contact information
Anna Lagunas: Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology
Alejandra Guerra-Castellano: University of Sevilla-CSIC
Alba Nin-Hill: University of Barcelona (UB)
Irene Díaz-Moreno: University of Sevilla-CSIC
Miguel A. De la Rosa: University of Sevilla-CSIC
Josep Samitier: Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology
Carme Rovira: University of Barcelona (UB)
Pau Gorostiza: Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Despite the importance of electron transfer between redox proteins in photosynthesis and respiration, the inter-protein electron transfer rate between redox partner proteins has never been measured as a function of their separation in aqueous solution. Here, we use electrochemical tunneling spectroscopy to show that the current between two protein partners decays along more than 10 nm in the solution. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal a reduced ionic density and extended electric field in the volume confined between the proteins. The distance-decay factor and the calculated local barrier for electron transfer are regulated by the electrochemical potential applied to the proteins. Redox partners could use electrochemically gated, long distance electron transfer through the solution in order to conciliate high specificity with weak binding, thus keeping high turnover rates in the crowded environment of cells.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07499-x Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-07499-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07499-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().