Singlet energy transfer between aromatic amino acids and nucleic acid bases. Theoretical calculations.

Abstract

Abstract— Critical Forster distances for excitation energy transfer at the singlet level between the tyrosyl or tryptophyl residues of proteins and nucleic acid bases have been calculated. Efficient singlet energy transfer can be expected from tyrosine to nucleic acid bases both at room temperature (10 <R0 < 17 A) and at low temperature (20 < R0 < 23 Å). At low temperature nucleic acid bases should be able to transfer their singlet excitation energy to the indole ring of tryptophan with a reasonable probability (9 < R0 < 15 A).