Unraveling the contributions to the spectral shape of flexible dyes in solution: insights on the absorption spectrum of an oxyluciferin analogue

We present a computational investigation of the absorption spectrum in water of 5,5-spirocyclopropyl-oxyluciferin (5,5-CprOxyLH), an analogue of the emitter compound responsible for the bioluminescence in fireflies. Several factors concur to 5,5-CprOxyLH's spectral shape: i) the contribution of the four close-energy excited states, which show significant non-adiabatic couplings, ii) the flexible molecular structure and iii) the specific interactions established with the surrounding protic solvent, which strongly couple the solvent dynamics with the dye's spectral response. To tackle the challenge to capture and dissect the role of all these effects we preliminarly investigate the role of non-adiabatic couplings with quantum dynamics simulations and a Linear Vibronic Coupling model in gas phase. Afterward we account for both molecular flexibility and solvent interactions by resorting to a mixed quantum classical protocol, named Adiabatic Molecular Dynamics generalized Vertical Gradient (Ad-MD|gVG), which is built on a method recently proposed by some of us. It is rooted in the partition between stiff degrees of freedom of the dye, accounted for at vibronic level within the harmonic approximation, and flexible degrees of freedom of the solute (and of the solvent, if present), described classically through a sampling based on Molecular Dynamics (MD). Ad-MD|gVG avoids spurious effects arising in the excited state Hessians due to non-adiabatic couplings, and can be therefore applied to account for the contributions of the first four excited states to 5,5-CprOxyLH absorption spectrum. The final simulated spectrum is in very good agreement with the experiment, especially when the MD is driven by a refined quantum-mechanically derived force-field. More importantly, the origin of each separate contribution to the spectral shape is properly accounted for, paving the way to future applications of the method to more complex systems or alternative spectroscopies, as emission or circular dichroism.