Toward EEG-Based BCI Applications for Industry 4.0: Challenges and Possible Applications.

In the last few decades, Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research has focused predominantly on clinical applications, notably to enable severely disabled people to interact with the environment. However, recent studies rely mostly on the use of non-invasive electroencephalographic (EEG) devices, suggesting that BCI might be ready to be used outside laboratories. In particular, Industry 4.0 is a rapidly evolving sector that aims to restructure traditional methods by deploying digital tools and cyber-physical systems. BCI-based solutions are attracting increasing attention in this field to support industrial performance by optimizing the cognitive load of industrial operators, facilitating human-robot interactions, and make operations in critical conditions more secure. Although these advancements seem promising, numerous aspects must be considered before developing any operational solutions. Indeed, the development of novel applications outside optimal laboratory conditions raises many challenges. In the current study, we carried out a detailed literature review to investigate the main challenges and present criteria relevant to the future deployment of BCI applications for Industry 4.0.

Photochemical processes in flavo-enzymes as a probe for active site dynamics: TrmFO of Thermus thermophilus.

Quenching of flavin fluorescence by electron transfer from neighboring aromatic residues is ubiquitous in flavoproteins. Apart from constituting a functional process in specific light-active systems, time-resolved spectral characterization of the process can more generally be employed as a probe for the active site configuration and dynamics. In the C51A variant of the bacterial RNA-transforming flavoenzyme TrmFO from the bacterium Thermus thermophilus, fluorescence is very short-lived (~ 1 ps), and close-by Tyr343 is known to act as the main quencher, as confirmed here by the very similar dynamics observed in protein variants with modified other potential quenchers, Trp283 and Trp214. When Tyr343 is modified to redox-inactive phenylalanine, slower and highly multiphasic kinetics are observed on the picosecond-nanosecond timescale, reflecting heterogeneous electron donor-acceptor configurations. We demonstrate that Trp214, which is located on a potentially functional flexible loop, contributes to electron donor quenching in this variant. Contrasting with observations in other nucleic acid-transforming enzymes, these kinetics are strikingly temperature-independent. This indicates (a) near-barrierless electron transfer reactions and (b) no exchange between different configurations on the timescale up to at least 2 ns, despite the presumed flexibility of Trp214. Results of extensive molecular dynamics simulations are presented to explain this unexpected finding in terms of slowly exchanging protein configurations.

Identification of the vibrational marker of tyrosine cation radical using ultrafast transient infrared spectroscopy of flavoprotein systems.

Tryptophan and tyrosine radical intermediates play crucial roles in many biological charge transfer processes. Particularly in flavoprotein photochemistry, short-lived reaction intermediates can be studied by the complementary techniques of ultrafast visible and infrared spectroscopy. The spectral properties of tryptophan radical are well established, and the formation of neutral tyrosine radicals has been observed in many biological processes. However, only recently, the formation of a cation tyrosine radical was observed by transient visible spectroscopy in a few systems. Here, we assigned the infrared vibrational markers of the cationic and neutral tyrosine radical at 1483 and 1502 cm-1 (in deuterated buffer), respectively, in a variant of the bacterial methyl transferase TrmFO, and in the native glucose oxidase. In addition, we studied a mutant of AppABLUF blue-light sensor domain from Rhodobacter sphaeroides in which only a direct formation of the neutral radical was observed. Our studies highlight the exquisite sensitivity of transient infrared spectroscopy to low concentrations of specific radicals.

Short-Lived Radical Intermediates in the Photochemistry of Glucose Oxidase.

Glucose oxidase is a flavoprotein that is relatively well-studied as a physico-chemical model system. The flavin cofactor is surrounded by several aromatic acid residues that can act as direct and indirect electron donors to photoexcited flavin. Yet, the identity of the photochemical product states is not well established. We present a detailed full spectral reinvestigation of this issue using femtosecond fluorescence and absorption spectroscopy. Based on a recent characterization of the unstable tyrosine cation radical TyrOH•+ , we now propose that the primary photoproduct involves this species, which was previously not considered. Formation of this product is followed by competing charge recombination and radical pair stabilization reactions that involve proton transfer and radical transfer to tryptophan. A minimal kinetic model is proposed, including a fraction of TyrOH.+ that is stabilized up to the tens of picoseconds timescale, suggesting a potential role of this species as intermediate in biochemical electron transfer reactions.

Identification of the TyrOH•+ Radical Cation in the Flavoenzyme TrmFO.

Tyrosine (TyrOH) and tryptophan radicals play important roles as intermediates in biochemical charge-transfer reactions. Tryptophanyl radicals have been observed both in their protonated cation form and in their unprotonated neutral form, but to date, tyrosyl radicals have only been observed in their unprotonated form. With a genetically modified form of the flavoenzyme TrmFO as a suitable model system and using ultrafast fluorescence and absorption spectroscopy, we characterize its protonated precursor TyrOH•+, and we show this species to have a distinct visible absorption band and a transition moment that we suggest to lie close to the phenol symmetry axis. TyrOH•+ is formed in ∼1 ps by electron transfer to excited flavin and decays in ∼3 ps by charge recombination. These findings imply that TyrOH oxidation does not necessarily induce its concerted deprotonation. Our results will allow disentangling of photoproduct states in flavoproteins in often-encountered complex situations and more generally are important for understanding redox chains relying on tyrosyl intermediates.

Determination of accurate electron chiral asymmetries in fenchone and camphor in the VUV range: sensitivity to isomerism and enantiomeric purity.

Photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD) manifests itself as an intense forward/backward asymmetry in the angular distribution of photoelectrons produced from randomly-oriented enantiomers by photoionization with circularly-polarized light (CPL). As a sensitive probe of both photoionization dynamics and of the chiral molecular potential, PECD attracts much interest especially with the recent performance of related experiments with visible and VUV laser sources. Here we report, by use of quasi-perfect CPL VUV synchrotron radiation and using a double imaging photoelectron/photoion coincidence (i(2)PEPICO) spectrometer, new and very accurate values of the corresponding asymmetries on showcase chiral isomers: camphor and fenchone. These data have additionally been normalized to the absolute enantiopurity of the sample as measured by a chromatographic technique. They can therefore be used as benchmarking data for new PECD experiments, as well as for theoretical models. In particular we found, especially for the outermost orbital of both molecules, a good agreement with CMS-Xα PECD modeling over the whole VUV range. We also report a spectacular sensitivity of PECD to isomerism for slow electrons, showing large and opposite asymmetries when comparing R-camphor to R-fenchone (respectively -10% and +16% around 10 eV). In the course of this study, we could also assess the analytical potential of PECD. Indeed, the accuracy of the data we provide are such that limited departure from perfect enantiopurity in the sample we purchased could be detected and estimated in excellent agreement with the analysis performed in parallel via a chromatographic technique, establishing a new standard of accuracy, in the ±1% range, for enantiomeric excess measurement via PECD. The i(2)PEPICO technique allows correlating PECD measurements to specific parent ion masses, which would allow its application to analysis of complex mixtures.