Mingyu Zhia,
Yanan Lib,
Shella Permatasari Santosoc,
Fangyuan Chenb and
Guangrong Huang*b
aHangzhou Vocational & Technical College, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province 310018, China
bCollege of Life Sciences, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province 310018, China. E-mail: grhuang@126.com
cDepartment of Chemical Engineering, Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya, Surabaya 60114, Indonesia
First published on 30th July 2018
The complexes of protein hydrolysates with iron ions may provide one solution for treating iron deficiency because they can work as iron absorption promoters. The chelating ability of some protein hydrolyzates is the key for their iron absorption promotion. Collagen is the most abundant protein in the nature, and collagen peptides are reported to have the ability to promote iron absorption. Collagen's basic tri-peptide unit, i.e., glycine–proline–hydroxyproline (Gly-Pro-Hyp) and its digestion products, glycine (Gly) and proline–hydroxyproline (Pro-Hyp), have been studied against the ferric metal ion. The complexation abilities were determined potentiometrically at three different temperatures of 25 °C, 37 °C, and 40 °C. The ionic strength was maintained using 0.15 mol dm−3 NaCl. Potentiometric data were refined using Hyperquad 2008, and the species distributions were simulated using HySS2009. The complexes of [MAxHy], with x = 1 to 3 and y = −4 to 2, were refined from three ligands at different temperatures and in the pH range from 2 to 11. The complex formation constant (logβ) indicated that the complex of Gly-Pro-Hyp was the most stable followed by Pro-Hyp and Gly complexes. Thermodynamic analysis revealed that the formation of the complexes of [MAxHy], with x = 1 to 3 and y = 0, was spontaneous since the ΔG value was negative; this means that Gly, Pro-Hyp and Gly-Pro-Hyp have good iron chelating abilities and therefore, they can act as promising iron absorption promoters. The thermodynamic properties of these complexes were also studied, and the base for the usage of these complexes was provided.
Collagen is the most abundant protein in nature; it exists in the skin and bones of animals. Collagen peptides have many bio-functions such as improving the health of skin and bones.10,11 Collagen peptides are also known for their antioxidant and antihypertensive activities.12,13 Furthermore, collagen peptides can promote Fe absorption due to their metal chelating ability. As clarified by some studies, Fe–collagen peptide complexes can be easily absorbed by the small intestine14 and Caco-2 cells.6 Although there are some studies about the complexes of collagen peptides with Fe, still many details regarding chelation are not clear.
In this study, the complex formation of Fe with collagen's basic units was investigated. Collagen tri-peptide, namely, glycine–proline–hydroxyproline (Gly-Pro-Hyp) and its digestion products, namely, glycine (Gly) and proline–hydroxyproline (Pro-Hyp) were chosen as the ligands since they are the most common basic units of collagen.15 To gain basic information and initial understanding of Fe–collagen chelation, the complexation study of Fe and collagen peptides was conducted potentiometrically. The complex formation was studied at three different temperatures, and the ionic strength was maintained with 0.15 mol dm−3 NaCl.16,17 The three temperatures of 25 °C, 37 °C, and 40 °C were chosen since they are the standard room temperature, normal body temperature, and fever temperature, respectively. The stabilities of the complexes were presented as the complex formation constants (logβ). The distributions of the complex species in the pH range of 2–11 are shown as species distribution diagram. Thermodynamic properties such as Gibbs energy (ΔG), enthalpy (ΔH) and entropy (ΔS) were also determined.
(A) 3 × 10−3 mol dm−3 HCl + 0.15 mol dm−3 NaCl.
(B) 3 × 10−3 mol dm−3 HCl + 0.15 mol dm−3 NaCl + 3 × 10−3 mmol dm−3 ligands (Gly, Pro-Hyp or Gly-Pro-Hyp).
(C1) 3 × 10−3 mol dm−3 HCl + 0.15 mol dm−3 NaCl + 3 × 10−3 mmol dm−3 ligands (Gly, Pro-Hyp or Gly-Pro-Hyp) + 3 mmol dm−3 ferric ion.
(C2) 3 × 10−3 mol dm−3 HCl + 0.15 mol dm−3 NaCl + 3 × 10−3 mmol dm−3 ligands (Gly, Pro-Hyp or Gly-Pro-Hyp) + 1.5 × 10−3 mol dm−3 ferric ion.
(C3) 3 × 10−3 mol dm−3 HCl + 0.15 mol dm−3 NaCl + 3 × 10−3 mol dm−3 ligands (Gly, Pro-Hyp or Gly-Pro-Hyp) + 1 × 10−3 mol dm−3 ferric ion.
All solutions were freshly prepared in deionized (DI) water (>18.2 MΩ cm−1 resistance). The solution of 3 × 10−3 mol dm−3 HCl was used to acidify the solutions; 0.15 mol dm−3 NaCl was used to maintain the ionic strength. The temperature was maintained by a circulating water bath (±0.1 °C), and three different temperatures of 25 °C, 37 °C, and 40 °C were used. Potentiometric measurements were obtained using Metrohm 916 Ti-Touch with a pH-glass electrode (3 decimals readability). All measurements were done in triplicate.
The Hyperquad 2008 program19 was used to compute the protonation constants and the complex formation constants. The Hyperquad 2008 program is more simple and accurate in determining the complex formation constant compared to several non-linear-square algorithm computer programs.16 The refined formation constants of each complex species at different temperatures were introduced to the HySS2009 program.20 HySS2009 was used to obtain the speciation diagrams that could be used to depict the distributions of various complex species in the observed pH ranges and at different temperatures. Thermodynamic properties such as Gibbs energy (ΔG), enthalpy (ΔH) and entropy (ΔS) were also determined. ΔG was calculated using eqn (1):
ΔG = −2.303RTlog10β | (1) |
ΔH and ΔS for each species were determined as the slope and the intercept of the Van't Hoff plot, respectively, as defined in eqn (2):
(2) |
The B curves show the deprotonation of the ligand. The pH slowly increased as the titrant was gradually added into the solution until the isoelectric point was reached. At the isoelectric point, the pH increased sharply. The isoelectric point occurred between the 2 deflection points of the titration curve. These 2 points indicated the pH at which deprotonation occurred. Pro-Hyp and Gly-Pro-Hyp ligands exhibited more isoelectric points than Gly, indicating that they have more deprotonable functional groups.
The stepwise deprotonation of the three ligands is depicted in Scheme 1. Gly is a diprotic ligand with two functional groups, viz., carboxylic group (–COOH) and amino group (–NH2). Pro-Hyp and Gly-Pro-Hyp are triprotic ligands, and their functional groups are similar to those of Gly; they also have a third functional group, i.e., the hydroxyl group (–OH). The first isoelectric point indicates the first deprotonation (pKa1) for Gly, Pro-Hyp and Gly-Pro-Hyp, corresponding to the deprotonation of the –COOH group. The second deprotonation (pKa2) indicated by the second isoelectric point for all the ligands corresponds to the deprotonation of the –NH2 group. Meanwhile, pKa3 values of Pro-Hyp and Gly-Pro-Hyp are observed due to the deprotonation of the –OH group.
The Hyperquad 2008 program was used to determine the protonation constants of the ligands. The values for the protonation constants of the three ligands are presented in Table 1. pKa of the ligands indicates the pH at which 50% of the ligand deprotonated species is formed. The values of pKa1 (2.51 ± 0.07) and pKa2(9.68 ± 0.03) of Gly at 25 °C were in a good agreement with the reported values of 2.33 and 9.61 (at 298.15 K and 0.05 M) by Gergely et al.21 as well as 2.32 and 9.62 (at 298.15 K and 0.15 mol dm−3 NaNO3) by Angkawijaya et al.22 The slight difference between the pKa values may be due to the use of different salts and ionic strengths.
T (°C) | Gly | Pro-Hyp | Gly-Pro-Hyp | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
pKa1 | pKa2 | pKa1 | pKa2 | pKa3 | pKa1 | pKa2 | pKa3 | |
a Values in the parentheses indicate the standard deviation of the last decimal place; ±95% confidence interval. | ||||||||
25 | 2.51(7) | 9.68(3) | 2.02(14) | 5.90(3) | >12 | 2.42(5) | 3.53(6) | 8.42(4) |
37 | <2 | 9.37(1) | <2 | 5.44(4) | 10.51(4) | <2 | 3.07(9) | 7.25(5) |
40 | <2 | 9.27(2) | <2 | 5.23(5) | 10.36(5) | <2 | 2.71(13) | 7.18(5) |
The pKa1 values of Pro-Hyp and Gly-Pro-Hyp at 37 °C and 40 °C were lower than 2; thus, they could not be determined due to the accuracy limit of the potentiometric method. This was in accordance with the results reported by Zhu et al., where pKa1 of Pro was found to be 1.99.23 Similarly, pKa3 of Pro-Hyp at 25 °C was higher than 12 and could not be determined potentiometrically. The pKa1 values of Pro-Hyp and Gly-Pro-Hyp were lower than the pKa1 value of Gly; this indicated that the deprotonation of –COOH was triggered by the presence of imino group and other neighboring groups. The pKa3 value of Gly-Pro-Hyp was lower than the pKa2 value of Gly, which was also due to the electron receptor effect of the imino group. All pKa values of the three ligands decreased as the temperature was increased, indicating that deprotonation was more favourable at a higher temperature; this was similar to the observation where pKa (pH) of H2O decreased as the temperature increased.
Complex | Gly | Pro-Hyp | Gly-Pro-Hyp | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
25 °C | 37 °C | 40 °C | 25 °C | 37 °C | 40 °C | 25 °C | 37 °C | 40 °C | |
a The charge of each species is omitted for simplification. M indicates the Fe(III) ion, A indicates the ligand Gly or Pro-Hyp or Gly-Pro-Hyp, H indicates the proton, the negative value of H indicates the hydroxide ion. Values in the parentheses indicate the standard deviation of the last decimal place; ±95% confidence interval. | |||||||||
[MAH] | 22.47(6) | 20.84(10) | 21.47(9) | ||||||
[MA] | 9.17(6) | 9.59(3) | 9.89(11) | 14.48(7) | 14.99(5) | 14.88(12) | 16.67(8) | 16.99(7) | 17.55(9) |
[MAH−1] | 6.21(2) | 6.63(2) | 6.75(5) | 9.21(8) | 11.22(5) | 11.01(8) | 13.58(4) | 12.86(11) | 13.36(13) |
[MAH−2] | 2.32(2) | 3.34(3) | 3.78(8) | 0.01(9) | 4.04(6) | 4.06(8) | 7.99(5) | 8.75(12) | |
[MAH−3] | −10.91(9) | −6.74(14) | −2.23(6) | 0.36(10) | 2.51(10) | ||||
[MA2H2] | 31.53(11) | ||||||||
[MA2] | 19.10(11) | 19.54(10) | 19.72(13) | 23.78(6) | 24.16(7) | 23.69(8) | 24.69(8) | 23.03(12) | 23.60(7) |
[MA2H−1] | 19.40(10) | ||||||||
[MA2H−2] | 6.54(5) | 7.55(4) | 8.17(8) | 7.79(6) | 8.15(6) | 11.98(5) | 14.15(7) | ||
[MA2H−3] | −4.65(11) | −2.95(5) | −1.57(9) | −7.27(8) | −4.04(9) | ||||
[MA2H−4] | −11.78(10) | −3.85(8) | |||||||
[MA3] | 27.59(9) | 28.35(3) | 28.49(14) | 29.53(8) | 31.26(5) | 30.91(7) | 30.00(10) | 28.79(12) |
All the ligands could form chelate complexes with iron at a wide pH range and different temperatures. As shown by the logβ values in Table 2, the complexes of [MA3], [MA2], [MA] and [MAH] were found to be the most stable species compared with the complexes that contained hydroxide ions. This result was in accordance with another result reported previously: in the study conducted by Yakubov et al., the iron complexes with Gly, Di-Gly, and Tri-Gly had higher logβ values compared to the complex containing –OH.24 The [MA3] complex had the highest logβ value among all the ligands, indicating that this species was more stable than the other species. This result was similar to the results reported by Angkawijaya et al. and Fazary et al., which stated that the [MA3] complex of Fe(III) with a ligand, namely, ferulic acid, L-norleucine or gallic acid had the highest stability constant value and thus, it was a stable species.25,26 However, an exception was observed for the logβ value of [MA3] with Gly-Pro-Hyp as the ligand, especially at the temperatures of 37 °C and 40 °C; [MA2H2] was found to be more stable than [MA3]. This might be due to the steric hindrance effect of Gly-Pro-Hyp, which was larger than those of Gly and Pro-Hyp; this inhibited the formation of the [MA3] complex, especially at higher temperatures. Gly-Pro-Hyp can chelate stably with iron, and two Gly-Pro-Hyps can also form a stable complex with a ferric ion. However three Gly-Pro-Hyps are sometimes not acceptable in a complex. The [MA3] complex formed by Gly-Pro-Hyp was unstable, especially at a high temperature. This may be because Gly-Pro-Hyp was too large to form a stable [MA3] complex, which is similar to the observation where DL-2-(2-carboxymethyl)nitrilotriacetic acid (GLDA) and 3-hydroxy-2,2′-iminodisuccinic acid (HIDS) prefer to form [MA2H−1] and [MA2H−2] at I = 0.1 and 1.0 mol dm−3 at 25 ± 0.1 °C (ref. 27) possibly due to their larger structures. In general, the logβ values of the complexes increased as the temperature increased. This phenomenon was observed because at a higher temperature, the energy required to trigger the deprotonation of the ligand is also high. Since the deprotonation of the ligands occurred promptly at a higher temperature, the ligands tended to interact with the metal ion having an opposite charge.
It is shown in Fig. 2(a)–(c) that the [MA3] complexes of Gly system were formed between pH 4 and 9. At a lower pH, the [MA2] species were found to be more abundant, which indicated that these species were more stable at a lower pH. The [MA] and [MAH−2] complexes were also formed at low pH values, which was in accordance with results reported by Djurdievic regarding iron(III) ion and glycine complexation in a nitrate medium.28 Above pH 9, the amount of [MA2H−2] complex increased. As for the Pro-Hyp system, as shown in Fig. 2(d)–(f), [MA3] was also the most stable species in the pH range from 6 to 9.5; this was in accordance with the result obtained by Yakubov et al. who used the ligands glycine, di-glycine and tri-glycine.24 Above pH 9.5, the [MA2H−2] complex was formed more, whereas at pH less than 6, the complexes of [MA] and [MA2] were found to be more abundant. In the Gly-Pro-Hyp system (Fig. 2(g)–(i)), the species distribution was more complex than those of the Gly system and the Pro-Hyp system. This was because Gly-Pro-Hyp had more amino acid residues and more groups, which were able to form chelate complexes. The complexes of Gly-Pro-Hyp, namely, [MA2H−1], [MA2H−2] and [MAH−3] were found to contain more hydroxide ions; this might have occurred because Gly-Pro-Hyp was too large to form a stable [MA3] complex even though Gly-Pro-Hyp could chelate with iron stably. The –OH group could replace Gly-Pro-Hyp and form stable [MA2H−1], [MA2H−2] and [MAH−3] structures; this is similar to the formation of [MA2H−1] and [MA2H−2] at I = 0.1 and 1.0 mol dm−3 and at 25 ± 0.1 °C in which M = iron(III) and A = GLDA or HIDS.27 The same trend was followed by the iron complex with Gly-Gly-Gly24 as well as the iron complexes with L-norleucine and gallic acid.26
Complex | Gly | Pro-Hyp | Gly-Pro-Hyp | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
−ΔG | ΔH | ΔS | −ΔG | ΔH | ΔS | −ΔG | ΔH | ΔS | |||||||
25 °C | 37 °C | 40 °C | 25 °C | 37 °C | 40 °C | 25 °C | 37 °C | 40 °C | |||||||
a ΔG, ΔH, and ΔS have the units of kJ mol−1, kJ mol−1 and kJ mol−1 K−1, respectively. The charge of each species is omitted for simplification. M indicates the Fe(III) ion, A indicates the ligand Gly or Pro-Hyp or Gly-Pro-Hyp, H indicates the proton, the negative value of H indicates the hydroxide ion. | |||||||||||||||
[MA] | 52.34 | 56.96 | 59.31 | 79.55 | −0.44 | 82.67 | 89.03 | 89.21 | 55.31 | −0.46 | 95.19 | 100.92 | 105.21 | 88.14 | −0.61 |
[MAH−1] | 35.46 | 39.35 | 40.50 | 63.72 | −0.33 | 52.56 | 66.62 | 66.00 | 237.71 | −0.97 | |||||
[MAH−2] | 13.27 | 19.83 | 22.66 | 166.89 | −0.60 | 0.02 | 23.97 | 24.35 | 514.87 | −1.73 | |||||
[MAH−3] | −12.72 | 2.12 | 15.07 | 513.59 | −1.68 | ||||||||||
[MA2] | 109.22 | 116.01 | 118.26 | 67.46 | −0.59 | 135.76 | 143.45 | 142.03 | 7.65 | −0.48 | |||||
[MA2H−2] | 37.35 | 44.82 | 48.99 | 181.30 | −0.73 | ||||||||||
[MA2H−3] | −26.53 | −17.51 | −9.43 | 333.89 | −1.20 | ||||||||||
[MA3] | 157.48 | 168.38 | 170.82 | 109.24 | −0.89 |
We also predicted the possible structures of [MAnHm] (Fig. 3) with the ligand Gly-Pro-Hyp as an example. The complex contained the ligands and ferric ions. Some complexes also contained –OH groups in their structures. In a basic environment, the complex had no –OH groups. As the pH decreased, the –OH groups participated in the formation of the complexes. However, it was inconvenient for a [MA3Hm] complex to have –OH groups in its structure. Thus, the complexes formed with –OH groups were [MAHm] or [MA2Hm].
Fig. 3 The possible structures of [MAnHm]. M indicates the Fe(III) ion, A indicates the ligand Gly-Pro-Hyp. |
Footnote |
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c8ra04763d |
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2018 |