Deciphering light induced double bond isomerization in proteins

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With this award, the Chemistry of Life Processes program is supporting the research of Professor Olivucci of the Bowling Green State University. With the help of Dr. Xu, a microbiologist working in the same institution, Dr. Olivucci intends to study the mechanism of double-bond photoisomerization in protein mutants by combining quantum chemistry and genetic techniques. The research focuses on a photochromic sensory rhodopsin from the cyanobacterium Anabaena (ASR) as a reference lab model. The investigators will construct, starting from known crystallographic data, computer models of the ASR wild-type and of a series of its mutants and study the changes in their photoisomerization dynamics via excited state trajectory computations. A sub-set of these mutants will be constructed in the laboratory for validation purposes. The investigators seek to analyze the information derived by the study of multiple series of mutants, and in so doing gain an understanding of how specific amino acid replacements can tune/control the photoisomerization.The Broader Impact of this project emerges from the possibility to use computation in predicting and ultimately designing the photochemical properties of chromophore-containing proteins. The project stimulates collaboration across distant disciplines: computational quantum chemistry and molecular biology. Accordingly, the graduate students will receive a multidisciplinary training. The results will be disseminated not only through the conventional media but also through the on-line publication of a Protein Model Database. The results will also help to improve the quality of undergraduate/graduate courses at BGSU and thought via long-distance learning technologies. Professor Olivucci supports the undergraduate BGSU program Building Ohio's Sustainable Energy Future by teaching how to use computers and computational chemistry tools to characterize the absorption spectra of organic compounds.