Self-assembly and structural-functional flexibility of oxygenic photosynthetic machineries: Personal perspectives

Garab, Győző (2016) Self-assembly and structural-functional flexibility of oxygenic photosynthetic machineries: Personal perspectives. PHOTOSYNTHESIS RESEARCH, 127 (1). pp. 131-150. ISSN 0166-8595

Text GarabPhotosynthRes.pdf Restricted to Registered users only Download (3MB) | Request a copy

Abstract

This short review, with a bit of historical aspect and a strong personal bias and emphases on open questions, is focusing on the (macro-)organization and structural-functional flexibilities of the photosynthetic apparatus of oxygenic photosynthetic organisms at different levels of the structural complexity - selected problems that have attracted most my attention in the past years and decades. These include (i) the anisotropic organization of the pigment-protein complexes and photosynthetic membranes - a basic organizing principle of living matter, which can, and probably should be adopted to intelligent materials; (ii) the organization of protein complexes into chiral macrodomains, large self-assembling highly organized but structurally flexible entities with unique spectroscopic fingerprints - structures, where, important, high-level regulatory functions appear to 'reside'; (iii) a novel, dissipation-assisted mechanism of structural changes, based on a thermo-optic effect: ultrafast thermal transients in the close vicinity of dissipation of unused excitation energy, which is capable of inducing elementary structural changes; it makes plants capable of responding to excess excitation with reaction rates proportional to the overexcitation above the light-saturation of photosynthesis; (iv) the 3D ultrastructure of the granum-stroma thylakoid membrane assembly and other multilamellar membrane systems, and their remodelings - associated with regulatory mechanisms; (v) the molecular organization and structural-functional plasticity of the main light-harvesting complex of plants, in relation to their crystal structure and different in vivo and in vitro states; and (vi) the enigmatic role of non-bilayer lipids and lipid phases in the bilayer thylakoid membrane - warranting its high protein content and contributing to its structural flexibility. © 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item