Primary response of the sGC heme binding domain to the cleavage of the Fe-His bond

Soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) is an important heme sensor protein. Regulation of the status of heme in the heme binding domain (or HNOX domain) by various gaseous activators can increase the catalytic efficiency of the cyclase domain. Several studies have demonstrated that the full activation of sGC is directly related to the cleavage of the Fe-His bond of the HNOX domain. To expand the primary response of the sGC HNOX domain to the cleavage event, a structural model of the sGC HNOX domain was constructed using homology modeling and the Fe-His bond was released at 6 ns of a 10-ns molecular dynamics simulation. An instant increment of Cα-RMSD over L2 (Loop2, residues 124-130) was found after the cleavage of the Fe-His bond, which was consistent with the principle component analysis (PCA). The energy analysis results suggest that the motions of L2 are energetic. Based on the results, energetic conformational transformation of L2 is identified as the primary response of the sGC HNOX domain to the cleavage of the Fe-His bond.