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

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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.