Pierre Briozzo

Bio: Pierre Briozzo is an academic researcher from University of Paris-Sud. The author has contributed to research in topics: Stokes shift & Fluorescence. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 36 citations.

Nanosecond Fluorescence Dynamic Stokes Shift of Tryptophan in a Protein Matrix

Abstract: The fluorescent dynamic Stokes shift (FDSS) method has emphasized a time-dependent dipolar relaxation process around the single tryptophan residue (Trp31) in cytidine monophosphate kinase from E. coli (CMPK). This Trp residue, located close to the protein surface in a hydrophobic pocket, is weakly accessible to acrylamide, a water-soluble quencher. It exhibits fluorescence characteristics suitable for a detailed study of dipolar relaxation: (i) a fluorescence decay almost monoexponential and (ii) a fluorescence emission maximum of 329 nm, in a wavelength range intermediate between those of a completely polar environment and a strongly apolar one. This emission maximum is shifted to 320 nm by decreasing the temperature to 230−240 K with glycerol as cryoprotectant. A time constant (∼100 ps) affected by a negative preexponential, evidenced in the red-edge fluorescence intensity decays, supports the existence of an excited-state reaction. A multiphasic FDSS (with time constants ranging from ∼100 ps to severa...

Biological water at the protein surface: dynamical solvation probed directly with femtosecond resolution.

Abstract: Biological water at the interface of proteins is critical to their equilibrium structures and enzyme function and to phenomena such as molecular recognition and protein-protein interactions. To actually probe the dynamics of water structure at the surface, we must examine the protein itself, without disrupting the native structure, and the ultrafast elementary processes of hydration. Here we report direct study, with femtosecond resolution, of the dynamics of hydration at the surface of the enzyme protein Subtilisin Carlsberg, whose single Trp residue (Trp-113) was used as an intrinsic biological fluorescent probe. For the protein, we observed two well separated dynamical solvation times, 0.8 ps and 38 ps, whereas in bulk water, we obtained 180 fs and 1.1 ps. We also studied a covalently bonded probe at a separation of approx 7 A and observed the near disappearance of the 38-ps component, with solvation being practically complete in (time constant) 1.5 ps. The degree of rigidity of the probe (anisotropy decay) and of the water environment (protein vs. micelle) was also studied. These results show that hydration at the surface is a dynamical process with two general types of trajectories, those that result from weak interactions with the selected surface site, giving rise to bulk-type solvation (approx 1 ps), and those that have a stronger interaction, enough to define a rigid water structure, with a solvation time of 38 ps, much slower than that of the bulk. At a distance of approx 7 A from the surface, essentially all trajectories are bulk-type. The theoretical framework for these observations is discussed.

The red‐edge effects: 30 years of exploration

Abstract: In 1970, three laboratories independently made a discovery that, for aromatic fluorophores embedded into different rigid and highly viscous media, the spectroscopic properties do not conform to classical rules. The fluorescence spectra can depend on excitation wavelength, and the excited-state energy transfer, if present, fails at the "red" excitation edge. These red-edge effects were related to the existence of excited-state distribution of fluorophores on their interaction energy with the environment and the slow rate of dielectric relaxation of this environment. In these conditions the site-selection can be provided by variation of the energy of illuminating light quanta, and the behaviour of selected species can be followed as a function of time and other variables. These observations found extensive application in different areas of research: colloid and polymer science, molecular biophysics, photochemistry and photobiology. In particular, they led to the development of very productive methods of studying the dynamics of dielectric relaxations in protein and membranes, using the tryptophan emission and the emission of a variety of probes. These studies were extended to the time domain with the observation of new site-selective effects in emission intensity and anisotropy decays. They stimulated the emergence and development of cryogenic energy-selective and single-molecular techniques that became valuable tools in their own right in chemistry and biophysics research. Site-selection effects were discovered for electron-transfer and proton-transfer reactions if they depended on the dynamics of the environment. This review is focused on the progress in the field of red-edge effects, their applications and prospects.

Electrostatics and dynamics of proteins

Abstract: Proteins are the working chemists of living cells. They are complex macromolecules, which display a rich and sometimes counterintuitive behaviour on many length- and timescales. They contain charged and polar groups, and electrostatic interactions control important aspects of their structure and function. Experiments and computer simulations have been used intensively to probe their electrostatic and dielectric properties. A simple framework to rationalize the results is continuum electrostatics, even though proteins are smaller than the usual, macroscopic length scales of continuum theory. We discuss selected topics, including protein structure, dynamics, and solvation; the dielectric response of proteins at large (macromolecular) and small (atomic) length scales, and the physical and numerical basis of current continuum models of proteins and protein solvation.

Dynamic Stokes shift in green fluorescent protein variants

Abstract: Solvent reorganization around the excited state of a chromophore leads to an emission shift to longer wavelengths during the excited-state lifetime. This solvation response is absent in wild-type green fluorescent protein, and this has been attributed to rigidity in the chromophore's environment necessary to exclude nonradiative transitions to the ground state. The fluorescent protein mPlum was developed via directed evolution by selection for red emission, and we use time-resolved fluorescence to study the dynamic Stokes shift through its evolutionary history. The far-red emission of mPlum is attributed to a picosecond solvation response that is observed at all temperatures above the glass transition. This time-dependent shift in emission is not observed in its evolutionary ancestors, suggesting that selective pressure has produced a chromophore environment that allows solvent reorganization. The evolutionary pathway and structures of related fluorescent proteins suggest the role of a single residue in close proximity to the chromophore as the primary cause of the solvation response.

Quantum dynamics of electronic excitations in biomolecular chromophores: role of the protein environment and solvent

Abstract: A biomolecular chromophore can be viewed as a quantum system with a small number of degrees of freedom interacting with an environment (the surrounding protein and solvent) which has many degrees of freedom, the majority of which can be described classically. The system-environment interaction can be described by a spectral density for a spin-boson model. The quantum dynamics of electronic excitations in the chromophore are completely determined by this spectral density, which is of great interest for describing quantum decoherence and quantum measurements. Specifically, the spectral density determines the time scale for the "collapse" of the wave function of the chromophore due to continuous measurement of its quantum state by the environment. Although of fundamental interest, there very few physical systems for which the spectral density has been determined experimentally and characterized. In contrast, here, we give the parameters for the spectral densities for a wide range of chromophores, proteins, and solvents. Expressions for the spectral density are derived for continuum dielectric models of the chromophore environment. There are contributions to the spectral density from each component of the environment: the protein, the water bound to the protein, and the bulk solvent. Each component affects the quantum dynamics of the chromophore on distinctly different time scales. Our results provide a natural description of the different time scales observed in ultrafast laser spectroscopy, including three pulse photon echo decay and dynamic Stokes shift measurements. We show that even if the chromophore is well separated from the solvent by the surrounding protein, ultrafast solvation can be still be dominated by the solvent. Consequently, we suggest that the subpicosecond solvation observed in some biomolecular chromophores should not necessarily be assigned to ultrafast protein dynamics. The magnitude of the chromophore-environment coupling is sufficiently strong that the quantum dynamics of electronic excitations in most chromophores at room temperature is incoherent, and the time scale for "collapse" of the wave function is typically less than 10 fs.