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Twenty years of biophysics of photosynthesis in Padova, Italy (1984–2005): A tale of two brothers

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Abstract

This paper tells the history of two brothers, almost a generation apart in age, who met again, after having followed different academic paths, to introduce biophysical research in photosynthesis at the University of Padova. The development of two research groups, one in the Chemistry Department, the other in the Biology Department led to a comprehensive interdisciplinary group across academic barriers. The group of Giovanni Giacometti developed in Physical Chemistry, during the years before his retirement, with some roots which can be traced to the famous Linus Pauling school of the mid 1950s, and made possible, by the work of many students (especially Donatella Carbonera and Marilena Di Valentin) and of an older associate (Giancarlo Agostini). The group participated quite actively with a number of European and American laboratories in the application of physical techniques, especially Electron Spin Resonance (EPR) associated with Optical Spectroscopy (Optically Detected Magnetic Resonance; ODMR), and contributed to the development of the understanding of the structure-function relationships in photosynthetic membrane complexes, stimulated by the determination of the X-ray structure of the purple photosynthetic reaction center in the mid 1980s ( J. Deisenhofer, H. Michel, R. Huber and others). The younger brother of Giovanni, Giorgio Mario Giacometti, came to Padova after obtaining biochemical knowledge from the Rossi-Fanelli school in Rome, where Jeffries Wyman, Eraldo Antonini and Maurizio Brunori were the world masters of hemoglobin research. In Padova, together with a group of young scientists (at first Roberto Bassi and Roberto Barbato, now leaders of their own groups in Verona and in Alessandria respectively, followed soon by brilliant coworkers such as Fernanda Rigoni, Elisabetta Bergantino and more recently Ildikò Szabò and Paola Costantini), Giorgio approached more biochemical themes of oxygenic photosynthesis, such as purification and characterization of antenna chlorophyll-protein complexes, Photosystem II (PS II) particles and subunits, having always in mind structural and molecular problems at the level of the largest integrated particles, which are more difficult to investigate in detail by the spectroscopic techniques.

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Abbreviations

B800-B866:

external antenna of Chloroflexus aurantiacus photosystem

CNR:

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

DNA:

Deoxyribonucleic acid

ENDOR:

Electron Nuclear Double Resonance

EPR:

Electron Paramagnetic Resonance

ESF:

European Science Foundation

FMO:

Fenna-Matthews-Olson protein, a special antenna of green bacteria photosystem

GG:

Giovanni Giacometti

GMG:

Giorgio Mario Giacometti

hfcc:

hyperfine coupling constant

LHC II:

external antenna of Photosystem II

NPQ:

non photochemical quenching

ODMR:

optically detected magnetic resonance

OEC:

oxygen evolving complex

P700:

primary electron donor of Photosystem I

PNAS:

Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA

PS I:

Photosystem I

PS II:

Photosystem II

T-S:

triplet minus singlet

TMR:

Training and Mobility of Researchers

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Acknowledgments

The research described in this paper was financed by a number of grants from the Italian government and from the European Community organizations. We are grateful in particular to the Italian Ministry of Research and Education for grants FIRB-RBAU01E3CX, PRIN-2001 and PRIN-2003; and to the European community for the TMR-980214 grant.

The authors thank also all the excellent coworkers, staff members, post-docs, graduate and undergraduate students, technicians, to whom the success of the research is due. The outline of the paper was not discussed with any of them. The authors alone are responsible for any relevant missing piece or of unintentional distortion in describing their contributions and, for this, they apologize.

This paper was written at the invitation of Govindjee during his 2004 visit to Italy; it was also edited by him. We thank Klaus Möbius for reading and correcting this paper; and Jim Barber for his valuable suggestions to improve the language of this paper, not all of which could be incorporated here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Padova, Via Giuseppe Colombo 3, 35121, Padova, Italy

    Giorgio M. Giacometti

  2. Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Padova, Via Loredan 2, 35121, Padova, Italy

    Giovanni Giacometti

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  1. Giorgio M. Giacometti
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  2. Giovanni Giacometti
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Correspondence to Giorgio M. Giacometti.

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This paper is dedicated to the late Arnold J. Hoff; it may be considered Part 2 of ‘Photosynthesis Research in Italy’, and Giorgio Forti et al.’s (2006) paper as Part 1.

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Giacometti, G.M., Giacometti, G. Twenty years of biophysics of photosynthesis in Padova, Italy (1984–2005): A tale of two brothers. Photosynth Res 88, 241–258 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-006-9057-9

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