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The sensitivity of a radical pair compass magnetoreceptor can be significantly amplified by radical scavengers
Birds have a remarkable ability to obtain navigational information from the Earth’s magnetic field. The primary detection mechanism of this compass sense is uncertain but appears to involve the quantum spin dynamics of radical pairs formed transiently in cryptochrome proteins. We propose here a new...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5599710/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28912470 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-09914-7 |
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author | Kattnig, Daniel R. Hore, P. J. |
author_facet | Kattnig, Daniel R. Hore, P. J. |
author_sort | Kattnig, Daniel R. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Birds have a remarkable ability to obtain navigational information from the Earth’s magnetic field. The primary detection mechanism of this compass sense is uncertain but appears to involve the quantum spin dynamics of radical pairs formed transiently in cryptochrome proteins. We propose here a new version of the current model in which spin-selective recombination of the radical pair is not essential. One of the two radicals is imagined to react with a paramagnetic scavenger via spin-selective electron transfer. By means of simulations of the spin dynamics of cryptochrome-inspired radical pairs, we show that the new scheme offers two clear and important benefits. The sensitivity to a 50 μT magnetic field is greatly enhanced and, unlike the current model, the radicals can be more than 2 nm apart in the magnetoreceptor protein. The latter means that animal cryptochromes that have a tetrad (rather than a triad) of tryptophan electron donors can still be expected to be viable as magnetic compass sensors. Lifting the restriction on the rate of the spin-selective recombination reaction also means that the detrimental effects of inter-radical exchange and dipolar interactions can be minimised by placing the radicals much further apart than in the current model. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5599710 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-55997102017-09-19 The sensitivity of a radical pair compass magnetoreceptor can be significantly amplified by radical scavengers Kattnig, Daniel R. Hore, P. J. Sci Rep Article Birds have a remarkable ability to obtain navigational information from the Earth’s magnetic field. The primary detection mechanism of this compass sense is uncertain but appears to involve the quantum spin dynamics of radical pairs formed transiently in cryptochrome proteins. We propose here a new version of the current model in which spin-selective recombination of the radical pair is not essential. One of the two radicals is imagined to react with a paramagnetic scavenger via spin-selective electron transfer. By means of simulations of the spin dynamics of cryptochrome-inspired radical pairs, we show that the new scheme offers two clear and important benefits. The sensitivity to a 50 μT magnetic field is greatly enhanced and, unlike the current model, the radicals can be more than 2 nm apart in the magnetoreceptor protein. The latter means that animal cryptochromes that have a tetrad (rather than a triad) of tryptophan electron donors can still be expected to be viable as magnetic compass sensors. Lifting the restriction on the rate of the spin-selective recombination reaction also means that the detrimental effects of inter-radical exchange and dipolar interactions can be minimised by placing the radicals much further apart than in the current model. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-09-14 /pmc/articles/PMC5599710/ /pubmed/28912470 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-09914-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Kattnig, Daniel R. Hore, P. J. The sensitivity of a radical pair compass magnetoreceptor can be significantly amplified by radical scavengers |
title | The sensitivity of a radical pair compass magnetoreceptor can be significantly amplified by radical scavengers |
title_full | The sensitivity of a radical pair compass magnetoreceptor can be significantly amplified by radical scavengers |
title_fullStr | The sensitivity of a radical pair compass magnetoreceptor can be significantly amplified by radical scavengers |
title_full_unstemmed | The sensitivity of a radical pair compass magnetoreceptor can be significantly amplified by radical scavengers |
title_short | The sensitivity of a radical pair compass magnetoreceptor can be significantly amplified by radical scavengers |
title_sort | sensitivity of a radical pair compass magnetoreceptor can be significantly amplified by radical scavengers |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5599710/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28912470 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-09914-7 |
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