To examine the functional roles of the active site methionine (M-site) and glutamic acid (E-site) residues of blue-light photoreceptors, we performed in silico mutation at the M-site in a systematic manner and focused on the hydrogen bonding between the E-site and the substrate: the cyclobutane-pyrimidine dimer (CPD). Fragment molecular orbital calculations with electron correlations demonstrated that substitution of the M-site methionine with either alanine or glutamine always destabilizes the interaction energy between the E-site and the CPD by more than 12.0 kcal/mol, indicating that the methionine and glutamic acid residues cooperatively facilitate the enzymatic reaction in the active site. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.