New Insight into the Water-Soluble Chlorophyll-Binding Protein from Lepidium virginicum

July 28, 2017

Title

New Insight into the Water-Soluble Chlorophyll-Binding Protein from Lepidium virginicum

Author

Adam Kell, Dominika Bednarczyk, Khem Acharya, Jinhai Chen, Dror Noy, Ryszard Jankowiak

Year

2016

Journal

Photochemistry and Photobiology

Abstract

This study describes new recombinant water-soluble chlorophyll (Chl)-binding proteins (WSCP) fromLepidium virginicum (LvWSCP). This complex binds four Chls (i.e. two dimers of Chls) per protein tetramer. We show that absorption, emission, hole-burned (HB) spectra and the shape of the zero-phonon hole (ZPH) action spectrum are consistent with the presence of uncorrelated excitation energy transfer between two Chl dimers. Thus, there is no need to include slow protein relaxation within the lowest excited state (as suggested in a previous analysis of cauliflower WSCP [Schmitt, F.-J.et al. (2008) J. Phys. Chem. B, 112, 13951; Pieper, J. et al. (2011) J. Phys. Chem. B, 115, 4053]) in order to explain the large shift observed between the maxima of the ZPH action and emission spectra. Experimental evidence is provided which shows that electron exchange between lowest energy Chls and the protein may occur, i.e. electrons can be trapped at low temperature by nearby aromatic amino acids. The latter explains the shape of nonresonant HB spectra (i.e. the absence of antihole), demonstrating that the hole-burning process in LvWSCP is largely photochemical in nature, though a small contribution from nonphotochemical hole burning (in resonant holes) is also observed.

Instrument

J-815

Keywords

Circular dichroism, Biochemistry