Organisms use photo-receptors to react to light. The first step is usually the absorption of a photon by a prosthetic group embedded inside the photo-receptor, often a conjugated chromophore. The electronic changes in the chromophore induced by photo-absorption can trigger a cascade of structural or chemical transformations that culminate into a response to light. Understanding how these proteins have evolved to mediate their activation process has remained challenging because the required time and spacial resolutions are notoriously difficult to achieve experimentally. Therefore, mechanistic insights into photoreceptor activation have been predominantly obtained with computer simulations. Here we briefly outline the challenges associated with such computations and review the progress made in this field.

中文翻译：

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观察发生的情况：通过非绝热分子动力学模拟将光敏蛋白捕获。

生物利用感光体对光做出反应。第一步通常是嵌入嵌入光感受器（通常是共轭生色团）内的修复基团吸收光子。由光吸收引起的生色团的电子变化可以触发一系列结构或化学转化，最终转变为对光的响应。由于所需的时间和空间分辨率众所周知很难通过实验实现，因此了解这些蛋白质如何进化以介导其激活过程仍然具有挑战性。因此，主要通过计算机模拟获得了对光感受器活化的机械见解。在这里，我们简要概述了与此类计算相关的挑战，并回顾了该领域的进展。