Effects of threonine 203 replacements on excited-state dynamics and fluorescence properties of the green fluorescent protein (GFP)

We report a comparative study of wild-type green fluorescent protein (GFP) and single-site mutants in which threonine at position 203 has been replaced by aliphatic and aromatic residues, i.e., by valine (V), isoleucine (I), phenylalanine (F), tyrosine (Y), and histidine (H). Steady-state absorption spectra reveal changes that reflect different charge distributions in the mutants as compared to wild-type GFP. While the absorption peak of the protonated fluorophore, RH, undergoes only a small red shift in all T203 mutants, a pronounced red shift is observed for the deprotonated form R-, ca. 1000 cm(-1) for the aliphatic mutants T203V and T203I, ca. 1200 cm(-1) for T203F, and 1360 cm(-1) for T203Y. Thus, we conclude that a ground-state conformation higher in energy than the wild-type R- state is the predominant origin of the red shift in all the T203 mutants investigated. Furthermore, mutant-dependent changes in the ground-state equilibria of RH and R- result from at least two modes of electrostatic stabilization, one resting on hydrogen bonding as in T203 and the other one on pi-pi-stacking as in T203F and T203Y. Surprisingly, the deprotonation dynamics of RH* is only weakly affected by the mutations at position 203. Only in the most red-shifted mutant T203Y an additional ultrafast (1.7 ps) excited-state decay channel of RH* has been observed. The identical kinetics of both processes, decay of RH* and ground-state recovery of RH in T203Y, is discussed in terms of two mechanisms: (i) rate-determining electron transfer from the protonated (or deprotonated) tyrosyl 203 residue to RH* followed by considerably faster recombination processes, which cannot occur in T203F for energetic reasons, and (ii) internal conversion in RH* favored by rotational motion around the exocyclic double bond.