Cyanide and azide behave in a similar fashion versus cuprozinc-superoxide dismutase.

The 1H NMR spectra of the cyanide adduct of Cu2Co2-superoxide dismutase have been remeasured at pH 7.5. The exchange rate of CN- is slow on the NMR time scale. The correlation with the spectrum of the unligated enzyme has been established through saturation-transfer techniques of the system in which 50% of the cyanide adduct is formed and through comparison with the spectrum of a Cu2Co2-superoxide dismutase-CN- sample in which the histidines have been deuterium labeled at the position epsilon 1. The similarities between the spectra of the CN- and N-3 derivatives are stressed, in particular with respect to the removal from copper coordination of the same histidine, assigned as His-46.