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These pigments enter a high-energy state upon absorbing a photon which they can release in the form of chemical energy. This can occur via light-driven pumping of ions across a biological membrane (e.g. in the case of the proton pump bacteriorhodopsin ) or via excitation and transfer of electrons released by photolysis (e.g. in the photosystems ...
A photosynthetic pigment (accessory pigment; chloroplast pigment; antenna pigment) is a pigment that is present in chloroplasts or photosynthetic bacteria and captures the light energy necessary for photosynthesis. List of photosynthetic pigments (in order of increasing polarity): Carotene: an orange pigment; Xanthophyll: a yellow pigment
The pigments which absorb light at the highest energy level are found furthest from the reaction center. On the other hand, the pigments with the lowest energy level are more closely associated with the reaction center. Energy will be efficiently transferred from the outer part of the antenna complex to the inner part.
Chlorophyll is the primary pigment in plants; it is a chlorin that absorbs blue and red wavelengths of light while reflecting a majority of green. It is the presence and relative abundance of chlorophyll that gives plants their green color. All land plants and green algae possess two forms of this pigment: chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b.
Each photosystem II contains at least 99 cofactors: 35 chlorophyll a, 12 beta-carotene, two pheophytin, two plastoquinone, two heme, one bicarbonate, 20 lipids, the Mn 4 CaO 5 cluster (including two chloride ions), one non heme Fe 2+ and two putative Ca 2+ ions per monomer. [4] There are several crystal structures of photosystem II. [5]
The reaction center contains two pigments that serve to collect and transfer the energy from photon absorption: BChl and Bph. BChl roughly resembles the chlorophyll molecule found in green plants, but, due to minor structural differences, its peak absorption wavelength is shifted into the infrared , with wavelengths as long as 1000 nm.
Each absorbed photon causes the formation of an exciton (an electron excited to a higher energy state) in the pigment molecule. The energy of the exciton is transferred to a chlorophyll molecule ( P680 , where P stands for pigment and 680 for its absorption maximum at 680 nm) in the reaction center of photosystem II via resonance energy transfer .
This small difference makes chlorophyll b absorb light with wavelengths between 400 and 500 nm more efficiently. Carotenoids are long linear organic molecules that have alternating single and double bonds along their length. Such molecules are called polyenes. Two examples of carotenoids are lycopene and β-carotene. These molecules also absorb ...