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Light‐harvesting pigment—protein complexes of purple photosynthetic bacteria
Author(s) -
Cogdell R.J.,
Thornber J.P.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/0014-5793(80)80388-7
Subject(s) - library science , citation , photosynthesis , biology , chemistry , botany , computer science
The light-absorbing pigments (bacteriochlorophyll and carotenoid) in the purple photosynthetic bacteria exist in vivo as well-defined pigment-protein complexes [ 1,2]. In general the polypeptides associated with the pigments are low molecular weight (or Mr), hydrophobic, intrinsic membrane proteins. There is a division of labour among the pigment molecules in the photosynthetic process: The majority serve as a light-harvesting antenna and funnel absorbed incident radiation to a few specialised sites (the photochemical reaction centres) where the light energy is trapped and converted into chemical potential energy. The combination of reaction centres with their associated antenna forms the so-called photosynthetic unit. The structure and function of the reaction centre is now quite well understood [3-61, mainly because of the availability of isolated, highly purified reaction centres [3,6,7]. In contrast, the light-harvesting pigment-proteins have been rather neglected. However, now that biochemists have learned how to isolate and purify the antenna complexes, the structure of this interesting class of proteins is receiving more attention. It is our purpose here to summarise the recent advances in the area.