Issue 64, 2015

Two-step energy transfer enables use of phenylalanine in action-EET for distance constraint determination in gaseous biomolecules

Abstract

Two-step energy transfer is potentially useful for exploring macromolecular structure, but it has not been observed previously in the gas-phase. Single step excitation energy transfer (EET) has been recently documented for tyrosine and tryptophan containing peptides, but not for phenylalanine. Herein, we report sequential energy transfer from phenylalanine to tyrosine to a disulfide, resulting in homolytic cleavage of a sulfur–sulfur bond. Interestingly, energy transfer from phenylalanine is only observed in the presence of tyrosine and only occurs within certain distance constraints. Isolated, electronically excited phenylalanine is known to have an extremely long lifetime in the gas phase, potentially suggesting quicker relaxation occurs via energy transfer to tyrosine. Alternatively, the direct overlap of states between phenylalanine and disulfide bonds is predicted to be poor, in which case tyrosine would serve to bridge the gap. In either case, the distance constraints imposed by this two-step EET are shown to be useful for evaluation and determination of gaseous biomolecular structure.

Graphical abstract: Two-step energy transfer enables use of phenylalanine in action-EET for distance constraint determination in gaseous biomolecules

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
06 May 2015
Accepted
23 Jun 2015
First published
23 Jun 2015
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Commun., 2015,51, 12720-12723

Two-step energy transfer enables use of phenylalanine in action-EET for distance constraint determination in gaseous biomolecules

N. G. Hendricks and R. R. Julian, Chem. Commun., 2015, 51, 12720 DOI: 10.1039/C5CC03779D

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements