Ilia A. Solov'yov, Henrik Mouritsen, and Klaus Schulten.
Acuity of a cryptochrome and vision based magnetoreception system in
birds.
Biophysical Journal, 99:40-49, 2010.
(PMC: 2895366)
SOLO2010
The magnetic compass of birds is embedded in the visual system and it has been
hypothesized that the primary sensory mechanism is based on a radical pair reaction.
Previous models of magnetoreception have assumed that the radical-pair forming
molecules are rigidly fixed in space, and this assumption has been a major objection to
the suggested hypothesis. In this paper, we investigate theoretically how much disorder is
permitted for the radical-pair forming protein based magnetic compass in the eye to
remain functional. Our study shows that only one rotational degree of freedom of the
radical-pair forming protein needs to be partially constrained, while the other two
rotational degrees of freedom do not impact the magnetoreceptive properties of the
protein. The result implies that any membrane associated protein is sufficiently restricted
in its motion to function as a radical-pair-based magnetoreceptor. We relate
our theoretical findings to the cryptochromes, currently considered the likeliest candidate
to furnish radical-pair based magnetoreception.
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