Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

How does a protein respond to infrared excitation? Our aim was to induce a specific non-thermal conformational change of a protein by infrared laser excitation. The fluorescence intensity of an intrinsically fluorescent protein, LSS-mOrange was monitored upon irradiation with a free electron laser at two of its IR absorption peaks (11.36/9.56 microns) and at a wavelength (9.06 microns) where the protein has no absorption. The irradiation at the absorption peaks caused a reversible fluorescence intensity increase on the sec-min timescale.