Covalent bond formation caught in a LOV photoreceptor
Bence Olasz, Guillaume Gotthard, Probal Nag, María González-Viegas, Sandra TM Mous, Anna Koczurowska, Philip J. M. Johnson, Tokushi Sato, Madan Kumar Shankar, Maximilian Wranik, Aleksandra Solecka, Diogo V. M. Melo, Ran Ke, Daniel James, Karol Nass, , Przemysław Nogły
This paper resolves the mechanism of covalent bond formation in a LOV photoreceptor using time-resolved crystallography and spectroscopy, revealing a water-mediated proton transfer that accelerates the reaction by fourteen orders of magnitude.
bioRxiv · Aug 6, 2026 · PreprintBiophysics