Flexibility of Oxidized and Reduced States of the Chloroplast Regulatory Protein CP12 in Isolation and in Cell Extracts

In the chloroplast, Calvin–Benson–Bassham enzymes are active in the reducing environment created in the light by electrons from the photosystems. In the dark, these enzymes are inhibited, mainly caused by oxidation of key regulatory cysteine residues. CP12 is a small protein that plays a role in this regulation with four cysteine residues that undergo a redox transition. Using amide-proton exchange with solvent, measured by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass-spectrometry, we confirmed that reduced CP12 is intrinsically disordered. Using real-time NMR, we showed that the oxidation of the two disulfide bridges is simultaneous. In oxidized CP12, the C(23)–C(31) pair is in a region that undergoes a conformational exchange in the NMR-intermediate timescale. The C(66)–C(75) pair is in the C-terminus that folds into a stable helical turn. We confirmed that these structural states exist in a physiologically relevant environment: a cell extract from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Consistent with these structural equilibria, the reduction is slower for the C(66)–C(75) pair than for the C(23)–C(31) pair. The redox mid-potentials for the two cysteine pairs differ and are similar to those found for glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase and phosphoribulokinase, consistent with the regulatory role of CP12.