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Dissociation and denaturation equilibria and kinetics of a homogeneous human immunoglobulin Fab fragment.

The conformational equilibria and the kinetics of the approach to equilibrium of an IgG1 myeloma (Wes) Fab fragment (SSFab) and its mildly reduced and S-carboxyamidomethylated derivative (RAFab) were studied as a function of guanidine hydrochloride concentration. The unimolecular denaturation of SSFab, the bimolecular denaturation of RAFab, and the denaturation of Wes L chain reported previously (Rowe, E. S., and Tanford, C., (1973), Biochemistry 12, 4822) are interpreted in terms of the domain structure and evaluated in terms of the thermodynamic stability of the protein and the covalent and noncovalent interactions among its subunits. The Fd-L interactions are found to be extremely strong and are maintained at concentrations of denaturant sufficient to denature the individual domains. It is shown that all of the data are consistent with a two region structure for Fab, one composed of the vL and vH domains, and the other composed of the cL and cH domains, so that there are two sites of noncovalent Fd-L interactions. One region, identified as the C region, is found to be 10(2)-10(4) times more stable than the other; this difference in stability is attributed largely to a stronger and more extensive interaction between the domains of this region. The kinetics of the approach to equilibrium are found to be extremely slow in the center of the transitions, requiring up to a week for equilibration for RAFab, and several months for SSFab. This unusual kinetic behavior is shown to be due to the strong Fd-L interaction under conditions where the monomeric domains are unstable.