Hi Everyone,
Lena Simine, a post-doc with Peter Rossky, will be visiting Harvard on Friday. She is giving a seminar in the division room from 10:30-11:30 am Friday Juy 21st. Her work overlaps with our interests in a couple of different spaces including studying pigment dynamics in a protein scaffold, and predicting fluorescence quantum yield.
A few of us will be going out to lunch together (TANSTAAFL), please e-mail me if you are interested in joining the group.
I look forward to seeing you all at the seminar!
Doran
eGFP-based motion sensor via electrostatic control of fluorescence
Lena Simine, Heiko Lammert, Jose N. Onuchic, and Peter J. Rossky
The rational design of genetically encoded fluorescent bio-sensors, which detect rearrangements of target proteins via interdomain allostery, is hindered by the absence of mechanistic understanding of the underlying photo-physics. Here, we investigate the mechanism for electrostatic control of fluorescence quantum yield in a model system: enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein (eGFP), using a combination of molecular dynamics (MD) and quantum chemistry simulations. Specifically, we uncover the mechanism of the modulation of fluorescence brightness by mild mechanical perturbations, and report a map of fluorescence quantum yield as a function of a 2D electric field imposed by the protein environment on the fluorophore; this map allows to assess the relative brightness of GFP homologues, or different conformants of thereof, directly from MD simulations. Our results are expected to expedite the discovery and optimization of fluorescent bio-sensors, e.g., genetically encoded voltage indicators.
Doran I. G. Bennett
Harvard University, Department of Chemistry
CIFAR Postdoctoral Fellow
Bio-inspired Light Harvesting Program