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Critical assessment of the emission spectra of various photosystem II core complexes

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Abstract

We evaluate low-temperature (low-T) emission spectra of photosystem II core complexes (PSII-cc) previously reported in the literature, which are compared with emission spectra of PSII-cc obtained in this work from spinach and for dissolved PSII crystals from Thermosynechococcus (T.) elongatus. This new spectral dataset is used to interpret data published on membrane PSII (PSII-m) fragments from spinach and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, as well as PSII-cc from T. vulcanus and intentionally damaged PSII-cc from spinach. This study offers new insight into the assignment of emission spectra reported on PSII-cc from different organisms. Previously reported spectra are also compared with data obtained at different saturation levels of the lowest energy state(s) of spinach and T. elongatus PSII-cc via hole burning in order to provide more insight into emission from bleached and/or photodamaged complexes. We show that typical low-T emission spectra of PSII-cc (with closed RCs), in addition to the 695 nm fluorescence band assigned to the intact CP47 complex (Reppert et al. J Phys Chem B 114:11884–11898, 2010), can be contributed to by several emission bands, depending on sample quality. Possible contributions include (i) a band near 690–691 nm that is largely reversible upon temperature annealing, proving that the band originates from CP47 with a bleached low-energy state near 693 nm (Neupane et al. J Am Chem Soc 132:4214–4229, 2010; Reppert et al. J Phys Chem B 114:11884–11898, 2010); (ii) CP43 emission at 683.3 nm (not at 685 nm, i.e., the F685 band, as reported in the literature) (Dang et al. J Phys Chem B 112:9921–9933, 2008; Reppert et al. J Phys Chem B 112:9934–9947, 2008); (iii) trap emission from destabilized CP47 complexes near 691 nm (FT1) and 685 nm (FT2) (Neupane et al. J Am Chem Soc 132:4214–4229, 2010); and (iv) emission from the RC pigments near 686–687 nm. We suggest that recently reported emission of single PSII-cc complexes from T. elongatus may not represent intact complexes, while those obtained for T. elongatus presented in this work most likely represent intact PSII-cc, since they are nearly indistinguishable from emission spectra obtained for various PSII-m fragments.

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Abbreviations

CT:

Charge transfer

Chl:

Chlorophyll

EET:

Excitation energy transfer

f :

Fluence

HB:

Hole burning

NPHB:

Nonphotochemical hole burning

PSII-m:

Membrane photosystem II

Pheo:

Pheophytin

PSII:

Photosystem II

PSII-cc:

Photosystem II core complex

RC:

Reaction center

room-T:

Room-temperature

T :

Temperature

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy (Award No. DE-SC0006678 to R.J.) and the Center for Bio-Inspired Solar Fuel Production, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the DOE, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Award No. DE-SC0001016 to P.F.). R.J. acknowledges useful discussions with Dr. E. Krausz (Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University) over the years and PSII-cc samples from spinach. We also thank Dr. V. Zazubovich for discussions and critical reading of our manuscript.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA

      Jinhai Chen, Adam Kell, Khem Acharya & Ryszard Jankowiak

    2. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA

      Christopher Kupitz & Petra Fromme

    3. Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA

      Ryszard Jankowiak

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    1. Jinhai Chen
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    Correspondence to Ryszard Jankowiak.

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    Jinhai Chen and Adam Kell contributed equally to this work.

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    Chen, J., Kell, A., Acharya, K. et al. Critical assessment of the emission spectra of various photosystem II core complexes. Photosynth Res 124, 253–265 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-015-0128-7

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