Pulse electron paramagnetic resonance studies of the interaction of methanol with the S2 state of the Mn4O5Ca cluster of photosystem II.

The binding of the substrate analogue methanol to the catalytic Mn4CaO5 cluster of the water-oxidizing enzyme photosystem II is known to alter the electronic structure properties of the oxygen-evolving complex without retarding O-2-evolution under steady-state illumination conditions. We report the binding mode of C-13-labeled methanol determined using 9.4 GHz (X-band) hyperfine sublevel-correlation (HYSCORE) and 34 GHz (Q-band) electron spin-echo electron nuclear double resonance (ESE-ENDOR) spectroscopies. These results are compared to analogous experiments on a mixed-valence Mn(III)Mn(IV) complex (2-OH-3,5-Cl-2-salpn)(2)Mn(III)Mn-(IV) (salpn = N,N'-bis(3,5-dichlorosalicylidene)-1,3-diamino-2-hydroxypropane) in which methanol ligates to the Mn(III) ion (Larson et al. (1992) J. Am. Chem. Soc., 114, 6263). In the mixed-valence Mn(III,IV) complex, the hyperfine coupling to the C-13 of the bound methanol (Aiso = 0.65 MHz, T = 1.25 MHz) is appreciably larger than that observed for C-13 methanol associated with the Mn4CaO5 cluster poised in the S-2 state, where only a weak dipolar hyperfine interaction (Aiso = 0.05 MHz, T = 0.27 MHz) is observed. An evaluation of the C-13 hyperfine interaction using the X-ray structure coordinates of the Mn4CaO5 cluster indicates that methanol does not bind as a terminal ligand to any of the manganese ions in the oxygen-evolving complex. We favor methanol binding in place of a water ligand to the Ca2+ in the Mn4CaO5 cluster or in place of one of the waters that form hydrogen bonds with the oxygen bridges of the cluster.