Abstract
The photosynthetic reaction center (RC) of the thermophilic, green, gliding bacterium Chloroflexus aurantiacus is functionally similar to reaction centers of the well-studied purple non-sulfur photosynthetic bacteria, but it has some significant structural differences. It has 3 bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) and 3 bacteriopheophytin (BPh) molecules, rather than 4 BChl and 2 BPh,1 and it consists of 2, rather than 3 polypeptides, designated M and L.2 Sequence data indicate that the BChl on the “non-functional” M-branch of pigments in the purple bacteria is replaced by BPh in C. aurantiacus.2 As in the purple species, photochemistry in C. aurantiacus generates a charge-separated state, in which a pair of strongly interacting BChl molecules that serves as the primary donor (P) becomes oxidized, and a quinone (QA) becomes reduced. Reduction of QA in C. aurantiacus occurs with a time-constant of about 300 ps, as compared to about 200 ps in Rhodobacter sphaeroides. 3 To investigate earlier electron transfer events in C. aurantiacus, we have conducted transient absorbance measurements on RCs at 298 K and at 81 K with 1 to 2 ps time-resolution, and we report some spectral and kinetic data here.
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Becker, M., Middendorf, D., Nagarajan, V., Parson, W.W., Martin, J.E., Blankenship, R.E. (1990). Picosecond Absorption Studies on Photosynthetic Reaction Centers of Chloroflexus aurantiacus . In: Baltscheffsky, M. (eds) Current Research in Photosynthesis. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0511-5_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0511-5_24
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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