Dimethylcethrene: A Chiroptical Diradicaloid Photoswitch

A Phytochrome-Derived Photoswitch for Intracellular Transport

Cells depend on the proper positioning of their organelles, suggesting that active manipulation of organelle positions can be used to explore spatial cell biology and to restore cellular defects caused by organelle misplacement. Recently, blue-light dependent recruitment of specific motors to selected organelles has been shown to alter organelle motility and positioning, but these approaches la...

Optical control of NMDA receptors with a diffusible photoswitch

N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) play a central role in synaptic plasticity, learning and memory, and are implicated in various neuronal disorders. We synthesized a diffusible photochromic glutamate analogue, azobenzene-triazole-glutamate (ATG), which is specific for NMDARs and functions as a photoswitchable agonist. ATG is inactive in its dark-adapted trans-isoform, but can be converted...

Chiroptical Probes ACationic Zinc Porphyrin as a Chiroptical Probe for Z-DNA**

DNA is a polymorphic polymer that can adopt a variety of secondary structures ranging from the canonical right-handed B form to the left-handed Z conformation. The latter conformation is less common than the right-handed B-DNA because under physiological conditions Z-DNA has a higher energy. Although the biological role of Z-DNA still remains to be clarified, it has recently been inferred that ...

Photoisomerization and relaxation dynamics of a structurally modified biomimetic photoswitch.

Recent experimental and theoretical studies on N-alkylated indanylidene pyrroline Schiff bases (NAIP) show that these compounds exhibit biomimetic photoisomerization analogous to that in the chromophore of rhodopsin. The NAIP compounds studied previously isomerize rapidly and often evolve coherently on the ground-electronic surface after reaction. We present the results of transient electronic ...

Redox-triggered chiroptical molecular switchesw