Stability of uniformly labeled ((13)C and (15)N) cytochrome c and its L94G mutant

Cytochrome c (cyt c) is widely used as a model protein to study (i) folding and stability aspects of the protein folding problem and (ii) structure–function relationship from the evolutionary point of view. Databases of cyts c now contain 285 cyt c sequences from different organisms. A sequence alignment of all these proteins with respect to horse cyt c led to several important conclusions. One of them is that Leu94 is always conserved in all 30 mammalian cyts c. It is known that mutation L94G of the wild type (WT) horse cyt c is destabilizing and mutant exists as molten globule under the native condition (buffer pH 6 and 25 °C). We have expressed and purified uniformly labeled ((13)C and (15)N) and unlabeled WT horse cyt c and its L94G mutant. We report that labeling does not affect the thermodynamic stability of proteins. To support this conclusion, the secondary and tertiary structure of each protein in labeled and unlabeled forms was determined by conventional techniques (UV–Vis absorption and circular dichroism spectroscopy).