IBODIPY as a new photoswitchable spin label for light-induced pulsed EPR dipolar spectroscopy exploiting magnetophotoselection.

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) pulsed dipolar spectroscopy (PDS) using triplet states of organic molecules is a growing area of research due to the favourable properties that these transient states may afford over stable spin centers, such as switchability, increased signal intensity when the triplet is formed in a non-Boltzmann distribution and the triplet signal is used for detection, and high orientation selection, when the triplet signal is probed by microwave pulses. This arises due to the large spectral width at low fields, a result of the large zero field splitting, and limited bandwidth of microwave pulses used. Here we propose the triplet state of a substituted BODIPY moiety as a spin label in light induced PDS, coupled to a nitroxide, in a model peptide with a rigid structure. Orientation selection allows information on the relative position of the centres of the two labels to be obtained with respect to the nitroxide reference frame. Additionally, magnetophotoselection effects are employed to introduce optical selection and additional constraints for the determination of the relative orientation of the spin labels considering the reference frame of the triplet state.