Absorption Linear Dichroism Measured Directly on a Single Light-Harvesting System: The Role of Disorder in Chlorosomes of Green Photosynthetic Bacteria

0367259 - BC 2012 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Furumaki, S. - Vácha, František - Habuchi, S. - Tsukatani, Y. - Bryant, D.A. - Vácha, M.
Absorption Linear Dichroism Measured Directly on a Single Light-Harvesting System: The Role of Disorder in Chlorosomes of Green Photosynthetic Bacteria.
Journal of the American Chemical Society. Roč. 133, č. 17 (2011), s. 6703-6710. ISSN 0002-7863. E-ISSN 1520-5126
R&D Projects: GA ČR GA206/09/0375
Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z50510513
Keywords : CHLOROBIUM-TEPIDUM * BACTERIOCHLOROPHYLL-C * SUPRAMOLECULAR ORGANIZATION
Subject RIV: EF - Botanics
Impact factor: 9.907, year: 2011

Chlorosomes are light-harvesting antennae of photosynthetic bacteria containing large numbers of self-aggregated bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) molecules. They have developed unique photophysical properties that enable them to absorb light and transfer the excitation energy with very high efficiency. However, the molecular-level organization, that produces the photophysical properties of BChl molecules in the aggregates, is still not fully understood. One of the reasons is heterogeneity in the chlorosome structure which gives rise to a hierarchy of structural and energy disorder. In this report, we for the first time directly measure absorption linear dichroism (LD) on individual, isolated chlorosomes. Together with fluorescence-detected three-dimensional LD, these experiments reveal a large amount of disorder on the single-chlorosome level in the form of distributions of LD observables in chlorosomes from wild-type bacterium Chlorobaculum tepidum.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0202002