International Collaboration in Chemistry: Mechanism of operation of the BLUF domain: blue light sensitive biosensors

化学系生命过程化学(CLP)项目的国际化学合作(ICC)奖支持石溪大学的Peter J.Tonge教授和英国东安格利亚大学的Stephen R.Meech教授合作开展光感受器功能的基础研究。光感受器是专门进化来将光能转化为结构变化的蛋白质，因此可以作为光驱动的分子和生物分子设备的原型。东安格利亚大学的团队研究了光感受器的蛋白质环境如何在超快时间尺度上调节嵌入发色团的激发态化学。石溪大学的首席研究员和他的国际团队研究了光感受器发色团对光的吸收如何与蛋白质的结构变化相结合，最终导致信号传递。对光感受器功能机制的实时研究将提供光感受器蛋白质作用的图像，需要数十年的时间从飞秒到毫秒的测量。解开初级光吸收过程中的蛋白质重组将为开发用于控制体内遗传反应的光学设备和将光遗传学应用于物理、化学和生物学的交叉问题奠定基础。该提议的更广泛影响从培训学生在化学动力学和化学生物学之间的界面，到基本理解光蛋白质如何控制和响应光吸收，这是视觉、昼夜节律和DNA修复等不同生物过程的核心。石溪大学的学生每年将多次前往英国拜访这位英国合作者，并在哈维尔的研究综合体收集超快光谱数据，这是这个ICC项目的关键组成部分。

This International Collaboration in Chemistry (ICC) award in the Chemistry of Life Processes (CLP) program in the Division of Chemistry supports collaborative work by Professor Peter J. Tonge of Stony Brook University and Professor Stephen R. Meech of the University of East Anglia in the UK, who is supported by the EPSRC, to carry out fundamental studies on photoreceptor function. Photoreceptors are proteins that have evolved specifically to convert light energy into structural change, and as such serve as prototypes for light driven molecular and biomolecular devices. The team at the University of East Anglia investigates "how" the protein environment of the photoreceptor modulates the excited state chemistry of the embedded chromophore on the ultrafast timescale. The principal investigator at Stony Brook University and his international team study how light absorption by the photoreceptor chromophore is coupled to structural changes in the protein that lead ultimately to signaling. Investigation of the mechanism of photoreceptor function in real time will provide a picture of a photoreceptor protein in action and requires measurements over many decades in time from femtoseconds to milliseconds. Unraveling the protein reorganization which follows from the primary light absorption process will underpin the development of optical devices for controlling genetic responses in vivo and the application of optogenetics to problems at the intersection of physics, chemistry and biology.The broader impacts of the proposal range from the training of students at the interface between chemical dynamics and chemical biology, to a fundamental understanding of how photoproteins control and respond to light absorption which is central to such diverse biological processes such as vision, circadian rhythms and DNA repair. Students at Stony Brook University will make multiple trips each year to the UK to visit the UK collaborator and also to collect ultrafast spectroscopic data at the Research Complex at Harwell which is a key component of this ICC project.