Unlocking chromophore excited state modulation in photoactive biohybrids using protein conformational dynamics
11 affiliations
- 1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
- 2Anschutz Medical Center, University of Colorado
- 3Institut de Ciències Fotòniques (ICFO), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 08860
- 4Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), Avinguda dels Päisos Catalans, 16, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain, 43007
- 5Department of Chemistry, Qena Faculty of Science
- 6South Valley University. UAEU, 15551 Al Ain, UAE
- 7Institute of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology
- 8Uppsala University
- 9Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, Via G. Moruzzi 13, Pisa, Italy, 56124
- 10Ångtömlaboratorierm, Uppsala University , Lägerhyddsvägen 1, Uppsala , Sweden, 752 37
- 11IMDEA Nanoscience , Faraday, 9, Madrid, Madrid, Spain, 28049
Abstract
Photoactive biohybrids offer a promising platform for photonic applications by merging the functional versatility of synthetic molecules with the tunable structure and dynamics of proteins. While unexpected excited-state relaxation in biohybrids has been attributed to complex protein motions, the intentional design and exploitation of such dynamics remain largely unexplored. Here, we demonstrated that the conformational landscape of biohybrids can be systematically tuned by exploiting the intrinsic flexibility of a de novo α3 protein scaffold. We develop the unfolding-refolding method to synthesize a series of four new thermodynamically stable biohybrids. Based on this approach, we showed that single-point aromatic mutations modulate the conformational exchange of our biohybrids on the microsecond timescale. By combining spectroscopic, structural, and computational studies, we showed that the engineered conformational dynamics correlate with changes in chromophore triplet-state relaxation. While environmental factors, such as polarity or steric forces within the protein pocket, can contribute to photoresponse, the observed trends highlight conformational dynamics as a key parameter linking protein structure to excited-state behavior. These findings reveal an unexplored strategy for controlling biohybrid photoresponses through engineered conformational changes, thereby opening new avenues for designing biohybrids with tunable photophysical properties.
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BibTeX
@misc{echavarria2026unlocking,
title = {{Unlocking chromophore excited state modulation in photoactive biohybrids using protein conformational dynamics}},
author = {Claudia F. Echavarría and Michael Warchol and Nicolas Langdon and Morkos A. Henen and Gregor Hill and Daniel Kocsi and Mohamed Abdellah and Celestine N. Chi and Beat Vögeli and Lorenzo Cupellini and Nicoletta Liguori and Starla Glover and Sara H Mejias},
howpublished = {ChemRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-5krws/v2},
url = {https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-5krws/v2},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Unlocking chromophore excited state modulation in photoactive biohybrids using protein conformational dynamics
AU - Claudia F. Echavarría
AU - Michael Warchol
AU - Nicolas Langdon
AU - Morkos A. Henen
AU - Gregor Hill
AU - Daniel Kocsi
AU - Mohamed Abdellah
AU - Celestine N. Chi
AU - Beat Vögeli
AU - Lorenzo Cupellini
AU - Nicoletta Liguori
AU - Starla Glover
AU - Sara H Mejias
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/04
PB - ChemRxiv
DO - 10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-5krws/v2
UR - https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-5krws/v2
AB - Photoactive biohybrids offer a promising platform for photonic applications by merging the functional versatility of synthetic molecules with the tunable structure and dynamics of proteins. While unexpected excited-state relaxation in biohybrids has been attributed to complex protein motions, the intentional design and exploitation of such dynamics remain largely unexplored. Here, we demonstrated that the conformational landscape of biohybrids can be systematically tuned by exploiting the intrinsic flexibility of a de novo α3 protein scaffold. We develop the unfolding-refolding method to synthesize a series of four new thermodynamically stable biohybrids. Based on this approach, we showed that single-point aromatic mutations modulate the conformational exchange of our biohybrids on the microsecond timescale. By combining spectroscopic, structural, and computational studies, we showed that the engineered conformational dynamics correlate with changes in chromophore triplet-state relaxation. While environmental factors, such as polarity or steric forces within the protein pocket, can contribute to photoresponse, the observed trends highlight conformational dynamics as a key parameter linking protein structure to excited-state behavior. These findings reveal an unexplored strategy for controlling biohybrid photoresponses through engineered conformational changes, thereby opening new avenues for designing biohybrids with tunable photophysical properties.
ER -