Selective (13)C labelling reveals the electronic structure of flavocoenzyme radicals

Flavocoenzymes are nearly ubiquitous cofactors that are involved in the catalysis and regulation of a wide range of biological processes including some light-induced ones, such as the photolyase-mediated DNA repair, magnetoreception of migratory birds, and the blue-light driven phototropism in plants. One of the factors that enable versatile flavin-coenzyme biochemistry and biophysics is the fine-tuning of the cofactor’s frontier orbital by interactions with the protein environment. Probing the singly-occupied molecular orbital (SOMO) of the intermediate radical state of flavins is therefore a prerequisite for a thorough understanding of the diverse functions of the flavoprotein family. This may be ultimately achieved by unravelling the hyperfine structure of a flavin by electron paramagnetic resonance. In this contribution we present a rigorous approach to obtaining a hyperfine map of the flavin’s chromophoric 7,8-dimethyl isoalloxazine unit at an as yet unprecedented level of resolution and accuracy. We combine powerful high-microwave-frequency/high-magnetic-field electron–nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) with (13)C isotopologue editing as well as spectral simulations and density functional theory calculations to measure and analyse (13)C hyperfine couplings of the flavin cofactor in DNA photolyase. Our data will provide the basis for electronic structure considerations for a number of flavin radical intermediates occurring in blue-light photoreceptor proteins.