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Biophys. J. BioFAST: First Published July 21, 2006. doi:10.1529/biophysj.106.085068
© 2006 by the Biophysical Society.

A more recent version of this article appeared on November 15, 2006.
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PHOTOBIOPHYSICS

Excitation energy transfer and charge separation in photosystem II membranes revisited

Koen Broess 1, Gediminas Trinkunas 2, Chantal D. van der Weij - de Wit 3, Jan P Dekker 3, Arie van Hoek 4 and Herbert van Amerongen 4*

1 Wageningen University, Laboratory of Biophysics, PO Box 8128, 6700 ET, Wageningen, The Netherlands
2 Institute of Physics, Vilnius 02300, Lithuania
3 Dept of Biophysics, Faculty of Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
4 Wageningen University

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: herbert.vanamerongen{at}wur.nl.

Submitted on March 16, 2006
Revised on May 1, 2006
Accepted on 29 June 2006


  Abstract
We have performed time-resolved fluorescence measurements on photosystem II (PSII) containing membranes (BBY particles) from spinach with open reaction centers. The decay kinetics can be fitted with two main decay components with an average decay time of 150 ps. Comparison with recent kinetic exciton annihilation data on the major light-harvesting complex of PSII (LHCII) suggests that excitation diffusion within the antenna contributes significantly to the overall charge separation time in PSII, which disagrees with previously proposed trap-limited models. In order to establish to which extent excitation diffusion contributes to the overall charge separation time, we propose a simple coarse-grained method, based on the supramolecular organization of PSII and LHCII in grana membranes, to model the energy migration and charge separation processes in PSII simultaneously in a transparent way. All simulations have in common that the charge separation is fast and nearly irreversible, corresponding to a significant drop in free energy upon primary charge separation, and that in PSII membranes energy migration imposes a larger kinetic barrier for the overall process than primary charge separation.

Key Words: antenna, light-harvesting complexes, model, reaction center, time-resolved fluorescence




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C. D. van der Weij-De Wit, A. B. Doust, I. H. M. van Stokkum, J. P. Dekker, K. E. Wilk, P. M. G. Curmi, and R. van Grondelle
Phycocyanin Sensitizes both Photosystem I and Photosystem II in Cryptophyte Chroomonas CCMP270 Cells
Biophys. J., March 15, 2008; 94(6): 2423 - 2433.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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Copyright © 2006 by the Biophysical Society.