The effect of oxidation on the electronic structure of the green fluorescent protein chromophore

Electronic structure calculations of the singly and doubly ionized states of deprotonated 4′-hydroxybenzylidene-2,3-dimethylimidazolinone (HBDI anion) are presented. One-electron oxidation produces a doublet radical that has blueshifted absorption, whereas the detachment of two electrons yields a closed-shell cation with strongly redshifted (by about 0.6 eV) absorption relative to the HBDI anion. The results suggest that the doubly oxidized species may be responsible for oxidative redding of green fluorescent protein. The proposed mechanism involves two-step oxidation via electronically excited states and is consistent with the available experimental information [A. M. Bogdanov, A. S. Mishin, I. V. Yampolsky, et al., Nat. Chem. Biol. 5, 459 (2009)]. The spectroscopic signatures of the ionization-induced structural changes in the chromophore are also discussed.