The inorganic biochemistry of photosynthetic water oxidation.

This enzyme, called the photosynthetic water oxidation complex (WOC), liberates protons and electrons needed for energy production and reduction of NADP’ and quinones that are essential for plant growth. The 0, formed in Equation 1 is not essential for plant survival, but is essential for other organisms on Earth, since it is by far the major source of global OL production for the atmosphere. The unique character of this enzyme is indicated by two observations. First, there does not exist a manmade functional mimic of this enzyme despite considerable synthetic efforts. Secondly, Nature appears to have adopted only a single solution for catalysis by the WOC, as implied by the apparent duplication of the same basic inorganic core of the enzyme throughout all known oxygenic plants and algae examined to date.