Degradation of the most abundant membrane protein on earth, the light-harvesting complex of Photosystem II (LHC II), is highly regulated under various environmental conditions, e.g., light stress, to prevent photochemical damage to the reaction center. We identified the LHC II degrading protease in Arabidopsis thaliana as a Zn(2+)-dependent metalloprotease, activated by the removal of unknown e...

We present light harvesting of aqueous colloidal quantum dots to nonradiatively transfer their excitonic excitation energy efficiently to dye molecules in water, without requiring ligand exchange. These as-synthesized CdTe quantum dots that are used as donors to serve as light-harvesting antennas are carefully optimized to match the electronic structure of Rhodamine B molecules used as acceptor...

Photosynthetic eukaryotes are challenged by a fluctuating light supply, demanding for a modulated expression of nucleus-encoded light-harvesting proteins associated with photosystem II (LHCII) to adjust light-harvesting capacity to the prevailing light conditions. Here, we provide clear evidence for a regulatory circuit that controls cytosolic LHCII translation in response to light quantity cha...

The role of acyl lipids in the in vitro stabilization of the oligomeric form of light-harvesting complex II of winter rye (Secale cereale L. cv Muskateer) grown at 5 or 20 degrees C was investigated. Purified light-harvesting complex II was enzymically delipidated to various extents by treatment with the following lipolytic enzymes: phospholipase C, phospholipase A(2), and galactolipase. Comple...

Photosystem I-light harvesting complex I (PSI-LHCI) was isolated from the thermoacidophilic red alga Galdieria sulphuraria, and its structure, composition, and light-harvesting function were characterized by electron microscopy, mass spectrometry, and ultrafast optical spectroscopy. The results show that Galdieria PSI is a monomer with core features similar to those of PSI from green algae, but...

The photosynthetic light-harvesting systems of purple bacteria and plants both utilize specific carotenoids as quenchers of the harmful (bacterio)chlorophyll triplet states via triplet-triplet energy transfer. Here, we explore how the binding of carotenoids to the different types of light-harvesting proteins found in plants and purple bacteria provides adaptation in this vital photoprotective f...

ground state geometries have been computed using density functional theory (dft) at b3lyp/6-31g(d,p) level of theory. the excitation energies and spectroscopic parameters have been computed using long range corrected (lc) hybrid functional by time dependent density functional theory (tddft) with lc-blyp level of theory. the polarizable continuum model (pcm) has been used for evaluating bulk sol...

An extraordinary light harvesting property of a periodic nano-pyramid array is reported. It is found that the nano-pyramid array can absorb light efficiently with an average absorptivity of 0.998 over the whole visible waveband. The ultra-high absorption is independent of the incoming light on polarization state and insensitive within a broad angle range. We attribute the efficient light harves...

The emissive output of indicator dyes in luminescent sensors can be amplified by the addition of antenna dyes with a higher brightness. The highly concentrated antenna dye molecules absorb the excitation light and transfer the energy to an indicator dye. This harvesting of light makes thin sensor layers (thickness <500 nm) and nanometer sized sensor particles with exceptionally high brightness ...

Absorption, linear dichroism and circular dichroism spectra of Rhodopseudomonas capsulata (wild-type-St. Louis strain, mutant Y5 and mutant Ala+) are particularly sensitive to the nature of the light-harvesting bacteriochlorophyll-carotenoid-protein complexes. Evidence for exciton-type interactions is seen near 855 nm in the membranes from the wild-type and from mutant Y5, as well as in an isol...