Calculation of electron transfer in ruthenium-modified derivatives of cytochrome b562

Quantitative theoretical studies of long-range electron transfer are still quite rare and require further development of computational methods for the analysis of such reactions. We considered the electron transfer reaction in rutenium-modified derivatives of cytochrome b562 with advanced modeling techniques. We conducted a series of ab initio calculations of the donor/acceptor interaction in protein fragments and compared the calculated electron velocity with available experimental data. Our approach takes into account the co-factor of the electronic structure and the impact of the solution on a donor-acceptor interaction. This allows us to predict the absolute values of the electron transfer rate unlike other computational methods which provide only qualitative results. Our estimates with good accuracy repeat the experimental values of electron transfer rate. It was found that the electron transfer in certain derivatives of cytochrome b562 is mainly caused by "shortcut" conformations in which the donor/acceptor interactions are mediated by the interaction of Ru-unbound ligands with groups of the protein surface. We argue that a quantitative theoretical analysis is essential for detailed understanding of electron transfer in proteins and mechanisms of biological redox reactions.