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Kim Y, Mitchell Z, Lawrence J, Morozov D, Savikhin S, Slipchenko LV. Predicting Mutation-Induced Changes in the Electronic Properties of Photosynthetic Proteins from First Principles: The Fenna-Matthews-Olson Complex Example. J Phys Chem Lett 2023; 14:7038-7044. [PMID: 37524046 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c01461] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/02/2023]
Abstract
Multiscale molecular modeling is utilized to predict optical absorption and circular dichroism spectra of two single-point mutants of the Fenna-Matthews-Olson photosynthetic pigment-protein complex. The modeling approach combines classical molecular dynamics simulations with structural refinement of photosynthetic pigments and calculations of their excited states in a polarizable protein environment. The only experimental input to the modeling protocol is the X-ray structure of the wild-type protein. The first-principles modeling reproduces changes in the experimental optical spectra of the considered mutants, Y16F and Q198V. Interestingly, the Q198V mutation has a negligible effect on the electronic properties of the targeted bacteriochlorophyll a pigment. Instead, the electronic properties of several other pigments respond to this mutation. The molecular modeling demonstrates that a single-point mutation can induce long-range effects on the protein structure, while extensive structural changes near a pigment do not necessarily lead to significant changes in the electronic properties of that pigment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yongbin Kim
- Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, 560 Oval Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Zach Mitchell
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, 525 Northwestern Avenue, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Jack Lawrence
- Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, 560 Oval Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Dmitry Morozov
- Nanoscience Center and Department of Chemistry, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Sergei Savikhin
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, 525 Northwestern Avenue, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Lyudmila V Slipchenko
- Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, 560 Oval Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
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Srivastava A, Ahad S, Wat JH, Reppert M. Accurate prediction of mutation-induced frequency shifts in chlorophyll proteins with a simple electrostatic model. J Chem Phys 2021; 155:151102. [PMID: 34686046 DOI: 10.1063/5.0064567] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes control local chlorophyll (Chl) transition frequencies through a variety of electrostatic and steric forces. Site-directed mutations can modify this local spectroscopic tuning, providing critical insight into native photosynthetic functions and offering the tantalizing prospect of creating rationally designed Chl proteins with customized optical properties. Unfortunately, at present, no proven methods exist for reliably predicting mutation-induced frequency shifts in advance, limiting the method's utility for quantitative applications. Here, we address this challenge by constructing a series of point mutants in the water-soluble chlorophyll protein of Lepidium virginicum and using them to test the reliability of a simple computational protocol for mutation-induced site energy shifts. The protocol uses molecular dynamics to prepare mutant protein structures and the charge density coupling model of Adolphs et al. [Photosynth. Res. 95, 197-209 (2008)] for site energy prediction; a graphical interface that implements the protocol automatically is published online at http://nanohub.org/tools/pigmenthunter. With the exception of a single outlier (presumably due to unexpected structural changes), we find that the calculated frequency shifts match the experiment remarkably well, with an average error of 1.6 nm over a 9 nm spread in wavelengths. We anticipate that the accuracy of the method can be improved in the future with more advanced sampling of mutant protein structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amit Srivastava
- Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
| | - Safa Ahad
- Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
| | - Jacob H Wat
- Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
| | - Mike Reppert
- Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
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Photosynthesis tunes quantum-mechanical mixing of electronic and vibrational states to steer exciton energy transfer. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:2018240118. [PMID: 33688046 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2018240118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Photosynthetic species evolved to protect their light-harvesting apparatus from photoxidative damage driven by intracellular redox conditions or environmental conditions. The Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) pigment-protein complex from green sulfur bacteria exhibits redox-dependent quenching behavior partially due to two internal cysteine residues. Here, we show evidence that a photosynthetic complex exploits the quantum mechanics of vibronic mixing to activate an oxidative photoprotective mechanism. We use two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy (2DES) to capture energy transfer dynamics in wild-type and cysteine-deficient FMO mutant proteins under both reducing and oxidizing conditions. Under reducing conditions, we find equal energy transfer through the exciton 4-1 and 4-2-1 pathways because the exciton 4-1 energy gap is vibronically coupled with a bacteriochlorophyll-a vibrational mode. Under oxidizing conditions, however, the resonance of the exciton 4-1 energy gap is detuned from the vibrational mode, causing excitons to preferentially steer through the indirect 4-2-1 pathway to increase the likelihood of exciton quenching. We use a Redfield model to show that the complex achieves this effect by tuning the site III energy via the redox state of its internal cysteine residues. This result shows how pigment-protein complexes exploit the quantum mechanics of vibronic coupling to steer energy transfer.
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Reinot T, Khmelnitskiy A, Kell A, Jassas M, Jankowiak R. Exciton Lifetime Distributions and Population Dynamics in the FMO Protein Complex from Prosthecochloris aestuarii. ACS OMEGA 2021; 6:5990-6008. [PMID: 33681637 PMCID: PMC7931385 DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.1c00286] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2021] [Accepted: 02/09/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Significant protein rearrangement upon excitation and energy transfer in Fenna-Matthews-Olson protein of Prosthecochloris aestuarii results in a modified energy landscape, which induces more changes in pigment site energies than predicted by the "standard" hole-burning theory. The energy changes are elucidated by simulations while investigating the effects of site-dependent disorder, both static (site-energy distribution widths) and dynamic (spectral density shapes). The resulting optimized site energies and their fluctuations are consistent with relative differences observed in inhomogeneous widths calculated by recent molecular dynamic simulations. Two sets of different spectral densities reveal how their shapes affect the population dynamics and distribution of exciton lifetimes. Calculations revealed the wavelength-dependent distributions of exciton lifetimes (T 1) in the femtosecond to picosecond time frame. We suggest that the calculated multimodal and asymmetric wavelength-dependent T 1 distributions offer more insight into the interpretation of resonant hole-burned (HB) spectra, kinetic traces in two-dimensional (2D) electronic spectroscopy experiments, and widely used global analyses in fitting data from transient absorption experiments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tonu Reinot
- Department
of Chemistry, Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, United States
| | - Anton Khmelnitskiy
- Department
of Chemistry, Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, United States
| | - Adam Kell
- Department
of Chemistry, Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, United States
| | - Mahboobe Jassas
- Department
of Chemistry, Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, United States
| | - Ryszard Jankowiak
- Department
of Chemistry, Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, United States
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Kell A, Khmelnitskiy AY, Reinot T, Jankowiak R. On uncorrelated inter-monomer Förster energy transfer in Fenna-Matthews-Olson complexes. J R Soc Interface 2020; 16:20180882. [PMID: 30958204 DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2018.0882] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
The Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) light-harvesting antenna protein of green sulfur bacteria is a long-studied pigment-protein complex which funnels energy from the chlorosome to the reaction centre where photochemistry takes place. The structure of the FMO protein from Chlorobaculum tepidum is known as a homotrimeric complex containing eight bacteriochlorophyll a per monomer. Owing to this structure FMO has strong intra-monomer and weak inter-monomer electronic coupling constants. While long-lived (sub-picosecond) coherences within a monomer have been a prevalent topic of study over the past decade, various experimental evidence supports the presence of subsequent inter-monomer energy transfer on a picosecond time scale. The latter has been neglected by most authors in recent years by considering only sub-picosecond time scales or assuming that the inter-monomer coupling between low-energy states is too weak to warrant consideration of the entire trimer. However, Förster theory predicts that energy transfer of the order of picoseconds is possible even for very weak (less than 5 cm-1) electronic coupling between chromophores. This work reviews experimental data (with a focus on emission and hole-burned spectra) and simulations of exciton dynamics which demonstrate inter-monomer energy transfer. It is shown that the lowest energy 825 nm absorbance band cannot be properly described by a single excitonic state. The energy transfer through FMO is modelled by generalized Förster theory using a non-Markovian, reduced density matrix approach to describe the electronic structure. The disorder-averaged inter-monomer transfer time across the 825 nm band is about 27 ps. While only isolated FMO proteins are presented, the presence of inter-monomer energy transfer in the context of the overall photosystem is also briefly discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam Kell
- 1 Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University , Manhattan, KS , USA
| | | | - Tonu Reinot
- 1 Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University , Manhattan, KS , USA
| | - Ryszard Jankowiak
- 1 Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University , Manhattan, KS , USA.,2 Department of Physics, Kansas State University , Manhattan, KS , USA
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Khmelnitskiy A, Reinot T, Jankowiak R. Mixed Upper Exciton State of the Special Pair in Bacterial Reaction Centers. J Phys Chem B 2019; 123:852-859. [PMID: 30624937 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.8b12542] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Excitonic interactions between two closely separated bacteriochlorophyll a molecules (BChls) in the special pair of the reaction center (RC) of purple bacteria determine the positions and relative oscillator strengths of its two excitonic components. While the absorption of the lower excitonic band is well-defined, the position and the intensity of the upper excitonic band ( PY+) are still under debate. Recent 77 K two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy data on Rba. capsulatus suggested that the PY+ component absorbs at ∼840 nm, i.e., at a significantly lower energy than previously suggested. In the present work, we argue that the PY+ state is mixed with the excited states of the accessory BChls ( B*/ P Y+) leading to excitons contributing to the 785-825 nm spectral region which is consistent with previously published data. This conclusion is based on hole-burning/linear dichroism data and modeling studies of the excitonic structure of the RC using a non-Markovian reduced density matrix approach.
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Khmelnitskiy A, Reinot T, Jankowiak R. Impact of Single-Point Mutations on the Excitonic Structure and Dynamics in a Fenna-Matthews-Olson Complex. J Phys Chem Lett 2018; 9:3378-3386. [PMID: 29863366 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b01396] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Hole burning (HB) spectroscopy and modeling studies reveal significant changes in the excitonic structure and dynamics in several mutants of the FMO trimer from the Chlorobaculum tepidum. The excited-state decay times ( T1) of the high-energy excitons are significantly modified when mutation occurs near bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) 1 (V152N mutant) or BChl 6 (W184F). Longer (averaged) T1 times of highest-energy excitons in V152N and W184F mutants suggest that site energies of BChls 1 and 6, believed to play an important role in receiving excitation from the baseplate BChls, likely play a critical role to ensure the femtosecond (fs) energy relaxation observed in wild-type FMO. HB spectroscopy reveals preferentially slower T1 times (about 1 ps on average) because fs times prohibit HB due to an extremely low HB quantum yield. Uncorrelated (incoherent) excitation energy transfer times between monomers, the composition of exciton states, and average, frequency-dependent, excited-state decay times ( T1) are discussed.
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Khmelnitskiy A, Saer RG, Blankenship RE, Jankowiak R. Excitonic Energy Landscape of the Y16F Mutant of the Chlorobium tepidum Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) Complex: High Resolution Spectroscopic and Modeling Studies. J Phys Chem B 2018; 122:3734-3743. [PMID: 29554425 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.7b11763] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
We report high-resolution (low-temperature) absorption, emission, and nonresonant/resonant hole-burned (HB) spectra and results of excitonic calculations using a non-Markovian reduced density matrix theory (with an improved algorithm for parameter optimization in heterogeneous samples) obtained for the Y16F mutant of the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) trimer from the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum. We show that the Y16F mutant is a mixture of FMO complexes with three independent low-energy traps (located near 817, 821, and 826 nm), in agreement with measured composite emission and HB spectra. Two of these traps belong to mutated FMO subpopulations characterized by significantly modified low-energy excitonic states. Hamiltonians for the two major subpopulations (Sub821 and Sub817) provide new insight into extensive changes induced by the single-point mutation in the vicinity of BChl 3 (where tyrosine Y16 was replaced with phenylalanine F16). The average decay time(s) from the higher exciton state(s) in the Y16F mutant depends on frequency and occurs on a picosecond time scale.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Rafael G Saer
- Departments of Biology and Chemistry , Washington University in St. Louis , Saint Louis , Missouri 63130 , United States
| | - Robert E Blankenship
- Departments of Biology and Chemistry , Washington University in St. Louis , Saint Louis , Missouri 63130 , United States
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Khmelnitskiy A, Jankowiak R. Impact of single point mutations on the excitonic structure and dynamics in FMO complex. EPJ WEB OF CONFERENCES 2018. [DOI: 10.1051/epjconf/201819002005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
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