New insights on photosynthesis

2010-02-22
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A team of scientists has inched closer to the mysteries of how plants and algae use photosynthesis to produce oxygen and 'fuels'.

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A team of scientists has inched closer to the mysteries of how plants and algae use photosynthesis to produce oxygen and 'fuels'.

Usually, the two pigment-protein complexes photosystem I (PSI) and photosystem II (PSII) compose the primary reactions of light in oxygenic photosynthesis.

Scientists from Arizona State University and the Max Planck Institute at Mülheim a.d. Ruhr, in Germany, worked together to examine the PSI reaction centre.

The team led by Kevin Redding, an associate professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, created mutations in the single-celled green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

With these mutants, the researchers demonstrated that it was possible to independently initiate the primary light-triggered electron transfer in the two parallel branches of the PSI reaction centre, the paper published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said.

They also showed that there are two charge separation devices in PSI, which works cooperatively to boost electron transfer's efficiency.

The researchers said that the latest study could aid future efforts to create artificial photosynthetic devices.

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