Assembly of synthetic locked chromophores with agrobacterium phytochromes Agp1 and Agp2

Phytochromes are photoreceptors with a bilin chromophore in which light triggers the conversion between the red-absorbing form Pr and the far-red-absorbing form Pfr. Agrobacterium tumefaciens has two phytochromes, Agp1 and Agp2, with antagonistic properties: in darkness, Agp1 converts slowly from Pfr to Pr, whereas Agp2 converts slowly from Pr to Pfr. In a previous study, we have assembled Agp1 with synthetic locked chromophores 15Za, 15Zs, 15Ea, and 15Es in which the C15=C16 double bond is fixed in either the E or Z configuration and the C14-C15 single bond is fixed in either the syn (s) or anti (a) conformation. In the present study, the locked chromophores 5Za and 5Zs were used for assembly with Agp1; in these chromophores, the C4=C5 double bond is fixed in the Z configuration, and the C5-C6 single bond is fixed in either the syn or anti conformation. All locked chromophores were also assembled with Agp2. The data showed that in both phytochromes the Pr chromophore adopts a C4=C5 Z C5-C6 syn C15=C16 Z C14-C15 anti stereochemistry and that in the Pfr chromophore the C15=C16 double bond has isomerized to the E configuration, whereas the C14-C15 single bond remains in the anti conformation. Photoconversion shifted the absorption maxima of the 5Zs adducts to shorter wavelengths, whereas the 5Za adducts were shifted to longer wavelengths. Thus, the C5-C6 single bond of the Pfr chromophore is rather in an anti conformation, supporting the previous suggestion that during photoconversion of phytochromes, a rotation around the ring A-B connecting single bond occurs.