Fragment Quantum Mechanical Method for Excited States of Proteins: Development and Application to the Green Fluorescent Protein

Understanding the excited-state properties of luminescent biomolecules is of central importance to their biophysical applications. In this study, we develop the Electrostatically Embedded Generalized Molecular Fractionation with Conjugate Caps (EE-GMFCC) method for quantitatively characterizing properties of covalently bonded systems with localized excitations (i.e., involving a single chromophore), such as fluorescent proteins. The excitation energy, transition dipole moment, and oscillator strength of wild-type Green Fluorescent Protein (wt-GFP) calculated by EE-GMFCC are found to be in excellent agreement with full system time-dependent density functional theory results. We also applied the Polarized Protein-Specific Charge model to wt-GFP, and found that electronic polarization of the protein is critical in stabilizing hydrogen bonding interactions in wt-GFP, which influences its absorption spectrum. The predicted absorption spectra of wt-GFP in the A and B states qualitatively agree with experiment. The fragmentation approach further allows a straightforward per residue decomposition of the excitation which reveals the influence of the protein environment on the absorption spectra of wt-GFP A and B states. Our results demonstrate that the EE-GMFCC method is both accurate and efficient for excited-state property calculations on proteins.