Ultrafast pump-probe study of the excited-state charge-transfer dynamics in blue copper rusticyanin

We have used femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy to investigate the excited-state dynamics of the anticancer blue copper protein rusticyanin, by exciting its ligand to metal charge-transfer band with 25 fs pump pulses centered at 585 nm. The charge-transfer excited state decays exponentially to the ground state with a time constant of about 230 fs, and its recovery is modulated by coherent oscillations. The Fourier transform of the oscillatory component of the signal provides most of the vibrational modes obtained by means of conventional resonance Raman studies, in addition to the low frequency modes below 80 cm(-1) believed to reflect collective motions of biological relevance.