The protein environment restricts the intramolecular charge transfer character of the luciferine/luciferase complex

The electronic characterization of the luciferine/luciferase complex is fundamental to tune its photophysical properties and develop more efficient devices based on this luminiscent system. Here, we apply molecular dynamics simulations, hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) calculations and transition density analysis to compute the absorption and emission spectra of luciferine/luciferase and analyze the nature of the relevant electronic state and its behaviour with the intramolecular and intermolecular degrees of freedom. It is found that the torsional motion of the chromophore is hampered by the presence of the enzyme, reducing the intramolecular charge transfer nature of the absorbing and emitting state. In addition, such a reduced charge transfer character does not correlate in a strong way neither with the intramolecular motion of the chromophore nor with the chromophore/amino-acid distances. However, the presence of a polar environment around the oxygen atom of the thiazole ring of the oxyluciferin, coming from both the protein and the solvent, enhances the charge transfer character of the emitting stateWe thank the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the project PID2020-117806GA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, the Comunidad de Madrid through the Attraction of Talent Program (Grant ref 2018-T1/ BMD-10261) and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid through the Ayudas para el Fomento de la Investigación en Estudios de Master program and the predoctoral Contract Formación de Personal Investigador (FPI-UAM). The work has been performed under the Project HPC-EUROPA3 (INFRAIA2016-1-730897), with the support of the EC Research Innovation Action under the H2020 Programme and the CINECA computing center. D.A. and M.G thank funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the H2020-NMBP-TO-IND-2018-2020/DT-NMBP-09-2018 grant agreement No. 814492 (SIMDOME

The OpenMolcas Web: A Community-Driven Approach to Advancing Computational Chemistry

The developments of the open-source OpenMolcas chemistry software environment since spring 2020 are described, with a focus on novel functionalities accessible in the stable branch of the package or via interfaces with other packages. These developments span a wide range of topics in computational chemistry and are presented in thematic sections: electronic structure theory, electronic spectroscopy simulations, analytic gradients and molecular structure optimizations, ab initio molecular dynamics, and other new features. This report offers an overview of the chemical phenomena and processes OpenMolcas can address, while showing that OpenMolcas is an attractive platform for state-of-the-art atomistic computer simulations

Ultrafast Dynamics of the Isolated Adenosine-5′-triphosphate Dianion Probed by Time-Resolved Photoelectron Imaging

The excited state dynamics of the doubly deprotonated dianion of adenosine-5′-triphosphate, [ATP–H2]2–, has been spectroscopically explored by time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy following excitation at 4.66 eV. Time-resolved photoelectron spectra show that two competing processes occur for the initially populated 1ππ* state. The first is rapid electron emission by tunneling through a repulsive Coulomb barrier as the 1ππ* state is a resonance. The second is nuclear motion on the 1ππ* state surface leading to an intermediate that no longer tunnels and subsequently decays by internal conversion to the ground electronic state. The spectral signatures of the features are similar to those observed for other adenine-derivatives, suggesting that this nucleobase is quite insensitive to the nearby negative charges localized on the phosphates, except of course for the appearance of the additional electron tunneling channel, which is open in the dianion

DELFI: A computer oracle for recommending density functionals for excited states calculations

Density functional theory (DFT) is known as the workhorse of computational quantum chemistry. One of its main limitations, if not the main one, is that choosing the right functional to employ is a non-trivial task left for human experts. The choice is particularly hard for excited states calculations, when using the time-dependent formulation of DFT (TD-DFT). This is not only due to the approximations and limitations of the method, but also because the photophysical properties of a molecule are defined by a manifold of states that all need to be properly described in a balanced manner to obtain an accurate photochemical picture. This includes not only the relative energy of the states, but also capturing the correct character, order and intensity of the transitions. In this work, we developed a scoring system to quantitatively define the accuracy of an excited states calculation by simultaneously considering at the same time all these properties of a manifold of states. The scoring system is generalizable to any level of theory, we here applied it to a large dataset of organic molecules, calculating 38 scores for as many common functionals of different type and rung, against a higher accuracy method for a total of more than 820.000 single point calculations. The results of these calculations are collected in a database that we released and made it open, providing 4 million datapoints to be used by the community for future applications. We used the scores we extrapolated to train a graph attention neural network that is used to predict the 38 scores for molecules represented as 2D graphs. We call this oracle DELFI (Data-driven EvaLuation of Functionals by Inference), which can be used to quickly screen and predict the ranking of functionals to calculate optical properties of organic molecules. A corresponding web application allows to easily run DELFI and analyze the results, alleviating the hurdle of choosing the right functional for TD-DFT calculations

The Protein Environment Restricts the Intramolecular Charge Transfer Character of the Luciferine/Luciferase Complex

The elecronic characterization of the luciferine/luciferase complex is fundamental to tune its photophysical properties and develop more efficient devices based on this luminiscent system. Here, we apply molecular dynamics simulations, hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) calculations and transition density analysis to compute the absorption and emission spectra of luciferine/luciferase and analyze the nature of the relevant electronic state and its behaviour with the intramolecular and intermolecular degrees of freedom. It is found that the torsional motion of the chromophore is hampered by the presence of enzyme, reducing the intramolecular charge transfer nature of the absorbing and emitting state. In addition, such a reduced charge transfer character does not correlate in a strong way with any individual intramolecular or intermolecular degree of freedom because it is likely influenced by a combination of them

Site-Specific Photo-oxidation of the Isolated Adenosine-5′-triphosphate Dianion Determined by Photoelectron Imaging

Photoelectron imaging of the isolated adenosine-5′-triphosphate dianion excited to the 1ππ* states reveals that electron emission is predominantly parallel to the polarization axis of the light and arises from subpicosecond electron tunneling through the repulsive Coulomb barrier (RCB). The computed RCB shows that the most probable electron emission site is on the amino group of adenine. This is consistent with the photoelectron imaging: excitation to the 1ππ* states leads to an aligned ensemble distributed predominantly parallel to the long axis of adenine; the subsequent electron tunneling site is along this axis; and the negatively charged phosphate groups guide the outgoing electron mostly along this axis at long range. Imaging of electron tunneling from polyanions combined with computational chemistry may offer a general route for probing the intrinsic photo-oxidation site and dynamics as well as the overall structure of complex isolated species

Dual-Hit Model of Parkinson's Disease: Impact of Dysbiosis on 6-Hydroxydopamine-Insulted Mice-Neuroprotective and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Butyrate

Recent evidence highlights Parkinson's disease (PD) initiation in the gut as the prodromal phase of neurodegeneration. Gut impairment due to microbial dysbiosis could affect PD pathogenesis and progression. Here, we propose a two-hit model of PD through ceftriaxone (CFX)-induced dysbiosis and gut inflammation before the 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) intrastriatal injection to mimic dysfunctional gut-associated mechanisms preceding PD onset. Therefore, we showed that dysbiosis and gut damage amplified PD progression, worsening motor deficits induced by 6-OHDA up to 14 days post intrastriatal injection. This effect was accompanied by a significant increase in neuronal dopaminergic loss (reduced tyrosine hydroxylase expression and increased Bcl-2/Bax ratio). Notably, CFX pretreatment also enhanced systemic and colon inflammation of dual-hit subjected mice. The exacerbated inflammatory response ran in tandem with a worsening of colonic architecture and gut microbiota perturbation. Finally, we demonstrated the beneficial effect of post-biotic sodium butyrate in limiting at once motor deficits, neuroinflammation, and colon damage and re-shaping microbiota composition in this novel dual-hit model of PD. Taken together, the bidirectional communication of the microbiota-gut-brain axis and the recapitulation of PD prodromal/pathogenic features make this new paradigm a useful tool for testing or repurposing new multi-target compounds in the treatment of PD

Directional and regioselective hole injection of spiropyran photoswitches intercalated into A/T-duplex DNA

The electron-hole injection from a family of spiropyran photoswitches into A/T-duplex DNA has been investigated at the molecular level for the first time. Multiscale computations coupled with automatized quantitative wavefunction analysis reveal a pronounced directionality and regioselectivity towards the template strand of the duplex DNA. Our findings suggest that this directional and regioselective photoinduced electron-hole transfer could thus be exploited to tailor the charge transport processes in DNA in specific applications

The OpenMolcas Web: A Community-Driven Approach to Advancing Computational Chemistry

The developments of the open-source OpenMolcas chemistry software environment since spring 2020 are described, with a focus on novel functionalities accessible in the stable branch of the package or via interfaces with other packages. These developments span a wide range of topics in computational chemistry and are presented in thematic sections: electronic structure theory, electronic spectroscopy simulations, analytic gradients and molecular structure optimizations, ab initio molecular dynamics, and other new features. This report offers an overview of the chemical phenomena and processes OpenMolcas can address, while showing that OpenMolcas is an attractive platform for state-of-the-art atomistic computer simulations.ISSN:1549-9618ISSN:1549-962