Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 7, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/srep42228
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Funding
- Electromagnetic Fields Biological Research Trust
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [QuBE: N66001-10-1-4061]
- European Research Council (under the European Union's 7th Framework Programme, FP7/ERC Grant) [340451]
- US Air Force (USAF) Office of Scientific Research (Air Force Materiel Command, USAF Award) [FA9550-14-1-0095]
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [RTG-1976]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [15K13547] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Drosophila have been used as model organisms to explore both the biophysical mechanisms of animal magnetoreception and the possibility that weak, low-frequency anthropogenic electromagnetic fields may have biological consequences. In both cases, the presumed receptor is cryptochrome, a protein thought to be responsible for magnetic compass sensing in migratory birds and a variety of magnetic behavioural responses in insects. Here, we demonstrate that photo-induced electron transfer reactions in Drosophila melanogaster cryptochrome are indeed influenced by magnetic fields of a few millitesla. The form of the protein containing flavin and tryptophan radicals shows kinetics that differ markedly from those of closely related members of the cryptochrome-photolyase family. These differences and the magnetic sensitivity of Drosophila cryptochrome are interpreted in terms of the radical pair mechanism and a photocycle involving the recently discovered fourth tryptophan electron donor.
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