An opsin shift in rhodopsin: Retinal S0-S1 excitation in protein, in solution, and in the gas phase

We considered a series of model systems for treating the photoabsorption of the 11-cis retinal chromophore in the protonated Schiff-base form in vacuum, solutions, and the protein environment. A high computational level, including the quantum mechanical-molecular mechanical (QM/MM) approach for solution and protein was utilized in simulations. The S0-S1 excitation energies in quantum subsystems were evaluated by means of an augmented version of the multiconfigurational quasidegenerate perturbation theory (aug-MCQDPT2) with the ground-state geometry parameters optimized in the density functional theory PBE0/cc-pVDZ approximation. The computed positions of absorption bands lambdamax, 599(g), 448(s), and 515(p) nm for the gas phase, solution, and protein, respectively, are in excellent agreement with the corresponding experimental data, 610(g), 445(s), and 500(p) nm. Such consistency provides a support for the formulated qualitative conclusions on the role of the chromophore geometry, environmental electrostatic field, and the counterion in different media. An essentially nonplanar geometry conformation of the chromophore group in the region of the C14-C15 bond was obtained for the protein, in particular, owing to the presence of the neighboring charged amino acid residue Glu181. Nonplanarity of the C14-C15 bond region along with the influence of the negatively charged counterions Glu181 and Glu113 are found to be important to reproduce the spectroscopic features of retinal chromophore inside the Rh cavity. Furthermore, the protein field is responsible for the largest bond-order decrease at the C11-C12 double bond upon excitation, which may be the reason for the 11-cis photoisomerization specificity.