Journal
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS
Volume 151, Issue 22, Pages -Publisher
AMER INST PHYSICS
DOI: 10.1063/1.5129608
Keywords
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Funding
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Air Force Materiel Command, USAF) [FA9550-14-1-0095]
- European Research Council (European Union) [810002]
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [SFB 1372]
- European Research Council (ERC) [810002] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)
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The ability of night-migratory songbirds to sense the direction of the Earth's magnetic field is increasingly attributed to a photochemical mechanism in which the magnetic field acts on transient radical pairs in cryptochrome flavoproteins located in the birds' eyes. The magnetically sensitive species is commonly assumed to be [FAD center dot- TrpH center dot+], formed by sequential light-induced intraprotein electron transfers from a chain of tryptophan residues to the flavin adenine dinucleotide chromophore. However, some evidence points to superoxide, O2 center dot-, as an alternative partner for the flavin radical. The absence of hyperfine interactions in O2 center dot- could lead to a more sensitive magnetic compass, but only if the electron spin relaxation of the O2 center dot- radical is much slower than normally expected for a small mobile radical with an orbitally degenerate electronic ground state. In this study we use spin dynamics simulations to model the sensitivity of a flavin-superoxide radical pair to the direction of a 50 mu T magnetic field. By varying parameters that characterize the local environment and molecular dynamics of the radicals, we identify the highly restrictive conditions under which a O2 center dot--containing radical pair could form the basis of a geomagnetic compass sensor. We conclude that the involvement of superoxide in compass magnetoreception must remain highly speculative until further experimental evidence is forthcoming. Published under license by AIP Publishing.
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