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Ultrafast isomerization dynamics of retinal in bacteriorhodopsin as revealed by femtosecond absorption spectroscopy

  • Articles
  • Physical Chemistry
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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

A femtosecond (fs) broad-band absorption apparatus was used to measure the early photoisomerization process of bacteriorhodopsin’s (BR) photocycle to reveal the character of the important intermediate of J625 and to obtain a deeper understanding of the role of photoisomerization in BR photocycle. Two time constants of 0.5 ps (95%) and 2.0 ps (5%) were brought out by global fitting on thirty curves in the near-infrared region. We suggest that the first time constant results from the decay of I460 intermediate, and the longer component might be associated with BR isomer. The global analysis over 450, 540, 630, 710 and 870 nm traces identified two time constants, ∼0.5 and ∼3 ps. The slower component can be extracted from the processes of both J625→BR568 (540 nm) and J625→K590 (630 nm), suggesting J-intermediate takes a partial cis configuration. The obvious negative feature in early delay time of 700–780 nm regions was attributed to the radiative transition (stimulated emission) from the Franck-Condon active configuration along the isomerization potential surface of all-trans-retinal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    YiShi Wu

  2. Institute of Biophysics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Sheng Zhong & KunSheng Hu

  3. Department of Chemistry, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    XiCheng Ai & JianPing Zhang

Authors
  1. YiShi Wu
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  2. Sheng Zhong
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  3. XiCheng Ai
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  4. KunSheng Hu
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  5. JianPing Zhang
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Correspondence to XiCheng Ai, KunSheng Hu or JianPing Zhang.

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Contributed equally to this work

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 20673144 and 20433010)

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Wu, Y., Zhong, S., Ai, X. et al. Ultrafast isomerization dynamics of retinal in bacteriorhodopsin as revealed by femtosecond absorption spectroscopy. Chin. Sci. Bull. 53, 1972–1977 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-008-0283-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-008-0283-8

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