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Engine of life and big bang of evolution: a personal perspective

  • Chapter
Book cover Discoveries in Photosynthesis

Part of the book series: Advances in Photosynthesis and Respiration ((AIPH,volume 20))

Abstract

Photosystem II (PS II) is the engine for essentially all life on our planet and its beginning 2.5 billion years ago was the ‘big bang of evolution.’ It produces reducing equivalents for making organic compounds on an enormous scale and at the same time provides us with an oxygenic atmosphere and protection against UV radiation (in the form of the ozone layer). In 1967, when I began my career in photosynthesis research, little was known about PS II. The Zscheme had been formulated [Hill and Bendall (1960) Nature 186: 136–137] and Boardman and Anderson [(1964) Nature 203: 166–167] had isolated PS II as a discrete biochemical entity. PS II was known not only to be the source of oxygen but of variable chlorophyll fluorescence [Duysens and Sweers (1963) In: Studies on Microalgae and Photosynthetic Bacteria, pp. 353–372. University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo] and delayed chlorophyll fluorescence [Arnold and Davidson (1954) J Gen Physiol 37: 677–684]. P680 had just been discovered [Döring et al. (1967) Z Naturforsch 22b: 639–644]. No wonder the ‘black box of PS II’ was described at that time by Bessel Kok and George Cheniae [Current Topics in Bioenergetics 1: 1–47 (1966)] as the ‘inner sanctum of photosynthesis.’ What a change in our level of understanding of PS II since then! The contributions of many talented scientists have unraveled the mechanisms and structural basis of PS II function and we are now very close to revealing the molecular details of the remarkable and thermodynamically demanding reaction which it catalyzes, namely the splitting of water into its elemental constituents. It has been a privilege to be involved in this journey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wolfson Laboratories, Department of Biological Sciences, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, SW7 2AZ, UK

    James Barber

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  1. James Barber
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA

    Govindjee

  2. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    J. Thomas Beatty

  3. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Howard Gest

  4. Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    John F. Allen

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Barber, J. (2005). Engine of life and big bang of evolution: a personal perspective. In: Govindjee, Beatty, J.T., Gest, H., Allen, J.F. (eds) Discoveries in Photosynthesis. Advances in Photosynthesis and Respiration, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3324-9_28

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