Photoactivation of bacteriophytochrome involves a cis–trans photoisomerization of a biliverdin chromophore, but neither the precise sequence of events nor the direction of the isomerization is known. Here, we used nonadiabatic molecular dynamics simulations on the photosensory protein dimer to resolve the isomerization mechanism in atomic detail.

In our simulations the photoisomerization of the D ring occurs in the counterclockwise direction. On a subpicosecond time scale, the photoexcited chromophore adopts a short-lived intermediate with a highly twisted configuration stabilized by an extended hydrogen-bonding network. Within tens of picoseconds, these hydrogen bonds break, allowing the chromophore to adopt a more planar configuration, which we assign to the early Lumi-R state.

The isomerization process is completed via helix inversion of the biliverdin chromophore to form the late Lumi-R state. The mechanistic insights into the photoisomerization process are essential to understand how bacteriophytochrome has evolved to mediate photoactivation and to engineer this protein for new applications.

[maxbutton id=”4″ url=”https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c00899″ text=”Read more” linktitle=”The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters: The Photocycle of Bacteriophytochrome Is Initiated by Counterclockwise Chromophore Isomerization” ]

Citation

Dmitry Morozov, Vaibhav Modi, Vladimir Mironov, Gerrit Groenhof (2022):
The Photocycle of Bacteriophytochrome Is Initiated by Counterclockwise Chromophore Isomerization.
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 13(20)
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c00899

About the author

Stian works in School of Computer Science, at the University of Manchester in Carole Goble‘s eScience Lab as a technical software architect and researcher. In addition to BioExcel, Stian’s involvements include Open PHACTS (pharmacological data warehouse), Common Workflow Language (CWL), Apache Taverna (scientific workflow system), Linked Data and identifiers, research objects (open science) and digital preservation, myExperiment (sharing scientific workflows), provenance (where did things come from and who did it) and annotations (who said what). orcid.org/0000-0001-9842-9718