https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-021-00076-w
Regular Article - Molecular Physics and Chemical Physics
Action spectroscopy of isomer-selected luciferin anions
1
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark
2
School of Chemistry, Norwich Research Park ,University of East Anglia, NR4 7TJ, Norwich, UK
3
Bruker Daltonik GmbH, Fahrenheitstrasse 4, 28359, Bremen, Germany
4
School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, 3010, Parkville, VIC, Australia
Received:
24
September
2020
Accepted:
9
February
2021
Published online:
2
March
2021
Luciferin molecules are common luminophores found throughout the biological kingdoms. Here, electrospray ionization and tandem ion mobility spectrometry coupled with laser spectroscopy are used to demonstrate that D-luciferin and oxyluciferin deprotonated anions can be produced in two isomeric forms, which can be separated by virtue of their different collision cross sections with a buffer gas. The two isomers possess distinguishable but partially overlapping photodepletion action spectra over the visible range, implying distinct intrinsic absorption profiles. The site of deprotonation and tautomeric forms of the electrosprayed isomers are assigned through comparisons between experimental and calculated collision cross sections and electronic excitation energies. The study clearly shows that electrospray ionization of biochromophore molecules can generate multiple isomeric forms with distinct electronic spectra.
Supplementary Information The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-021-00076-w) contains supplementary information, which is available to authorized users.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, SIF and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021
