IMR Press / FBL / Volume 16 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.2741/3710

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Proteins, glycerolipids and carotenoids in the functional photosystem II architecture
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1 Institute of Plant Biology, Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, PO Box 521, H-6701 Szeged, Hungary
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2011, 16(2), 619–643; https://doi.org/10.2741/3710
Published: 1 January 2011
Abstract

Photosystem II (PSII), the first supercomplex of the electron transport chain, governs the energy transfer using harvested light energy, which is transformed into biochemical energy. Phosphatidylglycerol and sulfoquinovosyl diacylglycerol, the anionic lipids of photosynthetic organisms, together with a neutral lipid, digalactosyldiacylglycerol, assist in the assembly of photosynthetic complexes. These lipids and carotenoids serve as mortar for the proteins which act as bricks in the construction of the active photosynthetic machinery, and they have determinative roles in the oligomerization of protein subunits. X-ray crystallographic localization of glycerolipids and carotenoids revealed that they are present at functionally and structurally important sites of both the PSI and PSII reaction centers. Phosphatidylglycerol is involved in the formation of the reaction-center oligomers and controls electron transport at the acceptor site of PSII. Digalactosyldiacylglycerol, together with phosphatidylglycerol, is involved in the electron transport at the donor site. Phosphatidylglycerol and carotenoids are needed to glue CP43 to the reaction center core. Carotenoids are protective agents, which prevent photosynthetic complexes from degradation caused by reactive oxygen species.

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