Few-fs resolution of a photoactive protein traversing a conical intersection

A. Hosseinizadeh, N. Breckwoldt, R. Fung, R. Sepehr, M. Schmidt, P. Schwander, R. Santra and A. Ourmazd ()
Additional contact information
A. Hosseinizadeh: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
N. Breckwoldt: Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY)
R. Fung: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
R. Sepehr: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
M. Schmidt: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
P. Schwander: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
R. Santra: Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY)
A. Ourmazd: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

Nature, 2021, vol. 599, issue 7886, 697-701

Abstract: Abstract The structural dynamics of a molecule are determined by the underlying potential energy landscape. Conical intersections are funnels connecting otherwise separate potential energy surfaces. Posited almost a century ago1, conical intersections remain the subject of intense scientific interest2–5. In biology, they have a pivotal role in vision, photosynthesis and DNA stability6. Accurate theoretical methods for examining conical intersections are at present limited to small molecules. Experimental investigations are challenged by the required time resolution and sensitivity. Current structure-dynamical understanding of conical intersections is thus limited to simple molecules with around ten atoms, on timescales of about 100 fs or longer7. Spectroscopy can achieve better time resolutions8, but provides indirect structural information. Here we present few-femtosecond, atomic-resolution videos of photoactive yellow protein, a 2,000-atom protein, passing through a conical intersection. These videos, extracted from experimental data by machine learning, reveal the dynamical trajectories of de-excitation via a conical intersection, yield the key parameters of the conical intersection controlling the de-excitation process and elucidate the topography of the electronic potential energy surfaces involved.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04050-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:599:y:2021:i:7886:d:10.1038_s41586-021-04050-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04050-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().