Extraordinary Proteins. Extreme lifestyles sometimes require sensing the earth's magnetic field. Trytophan and aspartic acid residues may be key to an organism's ability to pick up where it is relative to the earth's poles.

Birds, turtles, butterflies and other animals migrate with the help of the compasses built into their bodies. Little is known about the mechanistic nature of these compasses, and to fill the gap in knowledge, theoretical biophysicists Drs. Schulten and Solov'yov describe a nanomechanism within the cryptochrome proteins found in birds' retina tissue, inside the rod cells, which is known to process blue light for entraining circadian cycles, but should now perhaps also be known as the seat of these organism's ability to sense magnetic fields.

They hypothesize the birds perceive the effect of Earth's magnetic field by measuring the reaction dynamics of a process involving a pair of entangled electrons. One free radical is found on a tryptophan amino acid, and the second free radical - originating from the same tryptophan - is found on a nearby FAD factor. The backtransfer, or return, of the lone electron to tryptophan, is partially a function of the angle the line between the two electrons makes relative to Earth's poles. Sequentially, when a bird first encounters blue light, the electrons separate in the many cryptochrome protein's found in its retina. When the blue light stimulation stops, the lone electron on FAD returns - in an irreversable reaction - to the tryptophan where it originated. The amount of time it takes from the point when the first cryptochrome returns to its unstimulated electron configuration until the point where all the cryptochrome protein's have return, is one example of measurement of the reaction dynamics involving the backtransfer of the electron. It is this transition time - or some similar measurement of dynamics, such as acceleration - that is effected by the orientation of the entangled electrons relative to the earth's magnetic field. And it is this measurement which is likely used by the bird to perceive its position relative to the earth's magnetic field. The way the orientation to Earth's magnetic field affects the dynamics is through either increasing or decreasing the rate at which the electron of FAD returns to tryptophan. Because only where the entangled electrons are in the singlet sate - as opposed to the alternative triplet state - can the electron from FAD return to tryptophan. Accordingly, because the earth's magnetic field biases the electron to be in the singlet or triplet state, it thereby biases the rate at which the population returns to the unstimulated electron configuration.

Drs. Schulten and Solov'yov also introduce the involvement of a superoxide radical in order to increase the difference in time to about a millisecond for the back reaction electron transfer in different magnetic fields. By stabilizing the electron on FAD in the triplet state for as long as a millisecond when in the corresponding magnetic field, the difference in transition times (from one crytochrome until all the cryptochrome proteins return to the unstimulated state) reaches the magnitude consistent with prevalent timescales for signaling systems. A further condition of this model is that one rotational axis of the cryptochrome be restricted, which they say can easily be accomplished by tethering the cryptochrome to the cell membrane. And

Molecular Tour:

Klaus Schulten of the UIUC and Illia Solov'yov, now at the University of Southern Denmark, hypothesize that the FAD factor and just several residues of a crytochrome protein is all it takes to register the magnetic field of the earth. The they describe involves the . When light in the blue range hits the FAD factor it becomes excited, with the excitement diffused over its (the atoms involved in resonance are shown with halos). Then, one of the donates a hydrogen proton from its hydroxyl group (the proximate ones shown with halos). The FAD factor then receives an electron from the neighboring tryptophan, from the tryptophan's nitrogen atom (shown in halo). The proton and electron that FAD received are attached to one of the nitrogen atoms on its ring (shown with a halo). Next, this tryptophan received an electron from its , and then the second tryptophan received an electron from its neighbor, a third tryptophan. Finally, the third tryptophan loses a proton to a neighboring element. At this stage, the magnetic core contains an entangled pair of free radicals. The FAD factor contains a (shown with a halo), as does the third tryptophan residue on its donating nitrogen atom(shown with a halo).