Glutathione Non-Covalent Binding Sites on Hemoglobin and Major Glutathionylation Target BetaCys93 Are Conservative Among Both Hypoxia-Sensitive and Hypoxia-Tolerant Mammal Species

Intracellular tripeptide glutathione is an important agent of cell survival under hypoxia. Glutathione covalently binds to SH groups of hemoglobin cysteine residues, protecting them from irreversible oxidation, and changes its affinity to oxygen. Reduced glutathione (GSH) can also form a noncovalent complex with hemoglobin. Previously, we showed that hemoglobin tetramer has four noncovalent binding sites of glutathione GSH molecules inside, two of which are released during hemoglobin transition to deoxy form. In this study, we characterized the conserved cysteine residues and residues of noncovalent glutathione binding sites in the sequences of a number of hypoxia-tolerant and hypoxia-sensitive mammals. The solvent accessibility of all HbA and HbB residues in oxy and deoxy forms was analyzed. The alpha subunit of all species considered was shown to have no conserved cysteines, whereas the beta subunit contains Cys93 residue, which is conserved across species and whose glutathionylation changes the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen 5-6-fold. It was found that the key residues of noncovalent glutathione binding sites in both alpha and beta subunits are absolutely conserved in all species considered, suggesting a common mechanism of hemoglobin redox regulation for both hypoxia-sensitive and hypoxia-tolerant mammals.