A simple zinc-porphyrin-NDI dyad system generates a light energy to proton potential across a lipid membrane
Graphical abstract
Introduction
In a natural photosynthetic reaction centre, light energy is converted into chemical energy by a series of electron transfer steps across a lipid bilayer [1]. Sunlight is absorbed by light-harvesting antenna fragments such as pigments, chlorophylls and carotenoids and subsequently transferred between chromophores through an energy cascade ultimately reaching a reaction centre [2]. The transmembrane electron transfer occurs in the reaction centre within the protein environment to avoid back reactions [3]. Such machinery of life was developed biologically in the long-term evolutionary process. A wish to understand these mechanisms has motivated chemists to design systems within a lipid bilayer membrane with similar properties to provide a practical model of the working molecular apparatus i.e. an artificial solar energy reaction centre [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. So far, most of the research on artificial solar energy conversion has focused on mimicking various aspects of natural systems, and a reasonable understanding of the various components necessary for construction of an artificial photosynthetic reaction centre has been developed. To mimic the natural system, the main challenge is assembling these components in a spatially organised manner to harvest light energy into chemical energy [11]. There are currently three strategies which have been employed. One is based on constructing donor-acceptor systems in which various components are linked covalently through chemical bonds [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]. The second uses artificial systems for the ordering of molecules in particular dyes (i.e. tubules with diameters of about 1 nm and macroscopic lengths or molecular monolayers of macroscopic areas with a thickness and interlayer distance of about 2 nm) [20], which are similar to the natural system. The third approach is to directly use lipid membrane scaffolds for incorporating and organising the necessary components, and to create a photoinduced light energy to proton potential across the lipid membrane [1], [8], [9], [10]. However, the construction of such complex, multifunctional architectures are difficult to use in practical applications due to the complexity of the scaffold, and involve lengthy multistep synthetic procedures.
We report the assembly of an artificial photosynthetic centre employing a donor-acceptor dyad, which creates a photoinduced light energy to proton potential across a lipid bilayer. Our model is based on a simple design consisting of an electron donor (zinc-porphyrin) and acceptor (naphthalene diimide: NDI). The model requires the asymmetric insertion of the molecular dyad, which has been designed to support sufficient charge-separation lifetimes, for conversion of light into a proton potential across the lipid bilayer membrane by an appropriate charge transfer sequence. From the design perspective, we wanted to establish donating and accepting dyes with an end to end distance of about 35 Å, which led to the preparation of dyad 1 (see Fig. 1).
Section snippets
Material and measurements
Naphthalenetetracarboxy dianhydride, octylamine, acetic acid (AcOH), pyrrole, benzaldehyde, boron trifluoride etherate (BF3·O(Et)2), 2,3-Dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ), bromine (Br2), dimethyl formamide (DMF), toluene, chloroform (CHCl3), chloroform-d (CDCl3), methanol (MeOH), dichloromethane (DCM), and zinc acetate (Zn(OAc)2·2H2O) were purchased from Aldrich and 3,5-bis(octyloxy)benzaldehyde (Ark Pharm, Inc. USA), and egg yolk phosphatidylcholine (EYPC) (Avanti polar lipids) were
Molecular design and working principle
Dyad (1) spans the lipid membrane, and is capable of fast photoinduced charge separation through initial excitation of the zinc-porphyrin donor outside the lipid bilayer, to shuttle the electron to the internal quinone. Molecular dyad 1 (Fig. 1) was prepared by linking a synthetic triarylporphyrin (por) to the naphthalene diimide (NDI) moiety with a dithiophene spacer (see Supplementary Information). Dyad 1 bears three key features consistent with other specific methodologies for studying
Conclusions
We have demonstrated the synthesis of simple donor-acceptor dyads bearing a zinc-porphyrin donor and a core-substituted naphthalene diimide acceptor with (1) and without (2) dithiophene spacer. The length of the rigid-dyad scaffold of 1 perfectly matches with (35 Å) the thickness of lipid bilayer membranes. The photosynthetic activity was measured in egg yolk phosphatidylcholine large unilamellar vesicles (EYPC-LUVs). The inside of these vesicles were loaded with sulphanato naphthaquione (Q)
Acknowledgements
SVB. (RMIT) acknowledges financial support from the Australian Research Council, Australia under a Future Fellowship Scheme (FT110100152). LAJ thanks RMIT University for receipt of a Vice Chancellors (Industry) fellowship. K.O. acknowledges the Grant-in-Aids for Scientific Research (Nos. 23750014, 26620154, 26288037) from MEXT, Japan. SVB (IICT) is grateful for financial support from the SERB (DST) SB/S1/IC-09/2014, New Delhi, India.
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