Among the biological phenomena that fall within the emerging field of “quantum biology” is the suggestion that magnetically sensitive chemical reactions are responsible for the magnetic compass of migratory birds. It has been proposed that transient radical pairs are formed by photo-induced electron transfer reactions in cryptochrome proteins and that their coherent spin dynamics are influenced by the geomagnetic field leading to changes in the quantum yield of the signaling state of the protein. Despite a variety of supporting evidence, it is still not clear whether cryptochromes have the properties required to respond to magnetic interactions orders of magnitude weaker than the thermal energy, k B T . Here we demonstrate that the kinetics and quantum yields of photo-induced flavin—tryptophan radical pairs in cryptochrome are indeed magnetically sensitive. The mechanistic origin of the magnetic field effect is clarified, its dependence on the strength of the magnetic field measured, and the rates of relevant spin-dependent, spin-independent, and spin-decoherence processes determined. We argue that cryptochrome is fit for purpose as a chemical magnetoreceptor.

There is growing evidence that the remarkable ability of animals, in particular birds, to sense the direction of the Earth's magnetic field relies on magnetically sensitive photochemical reactions of the protein cryptochrome. It is generally assumed that the magnetic field acts on the radical pair [formed by the transfer of an electron from a group of three tryptophan residues to the photo-excited flavin adenine dinucleotide cofactor within the protein. ] arise from the asymmetric distribution of hyperfine interactions among the two radicals and the near-optimal magnetic properties of the flavin radical. We close by discussing the identity of Z † and possible routes for its formation as part of a spin-correlated radical pair with an FAD radical in cryptochrome.

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Complexes of zinc porphyrin oligomers with multivalent ligands can be denatured by adding a large excess of a monodentate ligand, such as quinuclidine. We have used denaturation titrations to determine the stabilities of the complexes of a cyclic zinc-porphyrin hexamer with multidentate ligands with two to six pyridyl coordination sites. The corresponding complexes of linear porphyrin oligomers were also investigated. The results reveal that the stepwise effective molarities (EMs) for the third through sixth intramolecular coordination events with the cyclic hexamer are extremely high (EM = 10(2)-10(3) M), whereas the values for the linear porphyrin oligomers are modest (EM ≈ 0.05 M). The speciation profiles for the denaturation reactions demonstrate that intermediate species are not significantly populated and that these equilibria are well described by a highly cooperative two-state model.

One of the principal models of magnetic sensing in migratory birds rests on the quantum spindynamics of transient radical pairs created photochemically in ocular cryptochrome proteins. We consider here the role of electron spin entanglement and coherence in determining the sensitivity of a radical pair-based geomagnetic compass and the origins of the directional response. It emerges that the anisotropy of radical pairs formed from spin-polarized molecular triplets could form the basis of a more sensitive compass sensor than one founded on the conventional hyperfine-anisotropy model. This property offers new and more flexible opportunities for the design of biologically inspired magnetic compass sensors.