Molecular Dynamic Indicators of the Photoswitching Properties of Green Fluorescent Proteins

Reversibly photoswitchable fluorescent proteins (RSFPs) are highly useful probes for a range of applications including diffraction-unlimited fluorescence microscopy. It was previously shown that reversible photoswitching not only involves cis-trans isomerization and protonation-deprotonation of the chromophore but also results in a marked difference in β-barrel flexibility. In this work, we performed flexibility profiling and functional mode analysis (FMA) using molecular dynamics calculations to study how the flexibility of the RSFP β-barrel influences the photoswitching properties of several fluorescent proteins. We also used Partial Least-Squared (PLS) FMA to detect promising mutation sites for the modulation of photoswitching properties of RSFPs. Our results show that the flexibility of RSFP does depend on its state with a systematically higher flexibility in the dark state compared to the bright state. In particular our method highlights the importance of Val157 in Dronpa, which upon mutation yields a striking difference in the collective motions of the two mutants. Overall, we show that PLS-FMA yields information, complementary to static structures, that can guide the rational design of fluorescent proteins.