Ultrafast Fluorescence Spectroscopy via Upconversion and Its Applications in Biophysics.

In this review, the experimental set-up and functional characteristics of single-wavelength and broad-band femtosecond upconversion spectrophotofluorometers developed in our laboratory are described. We discuss applications of this technique to biophysical problems, such as ultrafast fluorescence quenching and solvation dynamics of tryptophan, peptides, proteins, reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH), and nucleic acids. In the tryptophan dynamics field, especially for proteins, two types of solvation dynamics on different time scales have been well explored: ~1 ps for bulk water, and tens of picoseconds for "biological water", a term that combines effects of water and macromolecule dynamics. In addition, some proteins also show quasi-static self-quenching (QSSQ) phenomena. Interestingly, in our more recent work, we also find that similar mixtures of quenching and solvation dynamics occur for the metabolic cofactor NADH. In this review, we add a brief overview of the emerging development of fluorescent RNA aptamers and their potential application to live cell imaging, while noting how ultrafast measurement may speed their optimization.

Dehydrogenase Binding Sites Abolish the "Dark" Fraction of NADH: Implication for Metabolic Sensing via FLIM.

The fluorescence of dinucleotide NADH has been exploited for decades to determine the redox state of cells and tissues in vivo and in vitro. Particularly, nanosecond (ns) fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) of NADH (in free vs bound forms) has recently offered a label-free readout of mitochondrial function and allowed the different "pools" of NADH to be distinguished in living cells. In this study, the ultrafast fluorescence dynamics of NADH-dehydrogenase (MDH/LDH) complexes have been investigated by using both a femtosecond (fs) upconversion spectrophotofluorometer and a picosecond (ps) time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) apparatus. With these enhanced time-resolved tools, a few-picosecond decay process with a signatory spectrum was indeed found for bound NADH, and it can best be ascribed to the solvent relaxation originating in "bulk water". However, it is quite unlike our previously discovered ultrafast "dark" component (∼26 ps) that is prominent in free NADH (Chemical Physics Letters 2019, 726, 18-21). For these two critical protein-bound NADH exemplars, the decay transients lack the ultrafast quenching that creates the "dark" subpopulation of free NADH. Therefore, we infer that the apparent ratio of free to bound NADH recovered by ordinary (>50 ps) FLIM methods may be low, since the "dark" molecule subpopulation (lifetime too short for conventional FLIM), which effectively hides about a quarter of free molecules, is not present in the dehydrogenase-bound state.