Fine control of chlorophyll-carotenoid interactions defines the functionality of light-harvesting proteins in plants.

ABSTRACT: Photosynthetic antenna proteins can be thought of as "programmed solvents", which bind pigments at specific mutual orientations, thus tuning the overall energetic landscape and ensuring highly efficient light-harvesting. While positioning of chlorophyll cofactors is well understood and rationalized by the principle of an "energy funnel", the carotenoids still pose many open questions. Particularly, their short excited state lifetime (<25 ps) renders them potential energy sinks able to compete with the reaction centers and drastically undermine light-harvesting efficiency. Exploration of the orientational phase-space revealed that the placement of central carotenoids minimizes their interaction with the nearest chlorophylls in the plant antenna complexes LHCII, CP26, CP29 and LHCI. At the s

SUBMITTER: Balevicius V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5655323 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature