Metal ions-induced conformational change of P23 by using TNS as fluorescence probe

In 10 mM N-2-hydroxyethylpiperazine-N-2-ethanesulfonic acid (Hepes), pH 7.4, 25 °C, the conformational change of the truncated form of ciliate Euplotes Octocarinatus centrin (P23) induced by metal ions were investigated using 2-p-toluidinylnaphthalene-6-sulfonate (TNS) as a probe. The results show that upon metal ions binding, P23 undergo a conformational change and the contributions to the conformational change from the two EF-hands are different, and Tb3+ has more larger influence than Ca2+ with the same concentration metal ions, which provide possible the evidence that the different EF-hands play distinct biological functions. Meanwhile, the conditional binding constants of TNS and Ca2-loaded or Tb2-loaded P23 were obtained, K (Ca2-P23 + TNS) = (7.49 ± 0.88) × 105 mol−1 L, K (Tb2-P23 + TNS) = (8.24 ± 0.49) × 105 mol−1 L.