Exploring the structural basis for high-efficiency energy transfer in photosynthetic organisms
Thursday, September 24, 2015 - 05:00
in Physics & Chemistry
Photosystem I (PSI) is one of the two photosystems found in the thylakoid membrane of oxygenic photosynthetic organisms. Its function is to harvest light energy that is utilized to drive a chain of electron transfer reactions, which leads to the production of the reduction power required for converting CO2 into sugars. In higher plants, the core of PSI is surrounded by a large light-harvesting complex I (LHCI), which forms a PSI-LHCI supercomplex with a total molecular mass of 600 kDa. The light energy captured by LHCI is transferred to the PSI core with an extremely high efficiency.